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6 THE PRESBYTERIA
they sing them to some tune that I never heard before.
The young minister preached a good sermon. After
the sermon he invited all strangers to come back into
the vestry and sign their names in the visitors' bookWe
accepted the invitation. It was a novel idea. On
the walls ot the vestry are the portraits of every pastor
the church has had since it was founded in 1777.
There must be forty of them. John Wesley must
rejoice in the work this chapel is doing. He must
rejoice even more at the great work the Methodist
Church is doing all over Christendom.
John Wesley is a man whom the English people
delight to honor. There are several handsome paintings
of him in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
There is a splendid portrait of him in the dining room
of Christ Church College, Oxford, where he was a
student, and where Methodism began in 1729. Best
of all. there i? a murol tiKUt T?u_ 1
, ...MIUI iauit.1 IU juuii Liianes
Wesley in Westminster Abbey. Nothing in the
whole Abbey interested me more or pleased me more.
On the tablet are these three sentences: "I look upon
all the world as my parish." "The best of all God is
with us." (John Wesley's own words). "God buries
his workman, but his work goes on."
John Calvin died before he was fifty-five. He
lived a life of pain and suffering. How different with
John Wesley. He was nearly eighty-eight when
he died, and just the year before his death he made
this remarkable statement: "J do not remember to
have felt lowness of spirits for a quarter of an hour
since I was born " I say that is a remarkable statement
to come from the lips of a man who preached
eight hundred times every year.
Behind John and Charles Wesley was a good
mother, Susannah Wesley. She was herself the
daughter of a minister, and the wife of a minister. It
is very proper that there should be a monument to
her near that of her illustrious son in the front yard
of the Wesley Chapel. On the tombstone at the
head of her grave it is stated that ch?* wac
of nineteen children. That is a guarantee that she
spent none of her time leading poodle dogs around
by a chain and that she never won first prize at a
morning bridge whist party. Blessed be the memory
of Susannah Wesley. Where there are mothers like
Jochebed and Hannah and Elizabeth and Eunice and
Lois and Susannah Wesley, there are going to be men
like Moses and Samuel and John the Baptist and Timothy
and John Wesley.
If a good ship will take me home next week I promise
to write no more letters.
London, August 25, 1909 Walter L. Lingle.
Christ's exhortation in the sixth chapter of Matthew
1Q trfl ? 1-2 ? 1 ? ? ? e *
^vn. j v. 1W si liic Miiguom oi uoa and his righteousness,
and all these (earthly) things shall be
added." Today, we see the fulfillment. In New York
a hundred years ago, wages were forty cents a day and
in Baltimore thirty-five cents. From sixty to seventyfive
dollars a year was the hire of a laborer. Those
were days in which not over one-eighth or one-tenth * '
the people were professors of religion. With aHvanr.
ing years, the proportion of church members has greatly
increased. And with the increase of church members
there is a great increase of wages.
lN OF THE SOUTH. Sept. 22, 1909.
Contributed
AN EVENING PRAYER.
To-night I lay the burden by,
As one who rests beside the road,
And from his wearied back unbinds
The whelming load.
I kneel by hidden pools of prayer,?
Still waters iraught with healing power;
In God's green pastures I abide
This longed-for hour.
I know that day must bid me face
Courageously my task again.
Serving with steady hand and heart
My fellowmen.
To hold my sorrow in the dark,
To fight my fear, to hide my pain,
And never for one hour to dream
The toil is vain?
This be to-morrow; now, tonight,
Great, pitying Fatner, I would be
Forgiven, uplifted, loved, renewed,
Alone witn Thee.
, Grace Dufheld Goodwin.
SECOND PROBATION.
Rev. F. P. Ramsay, Ph.D.
This is an error much more widespread than might
be supposed, an error reallv living in crerm in
_ - w o ? o fc,,w
minds of many who would most earnestly repudiate
the definite theory of second probation.
The theory of second probation assumes that a sinner
who hears the gospel is thereby put on probation
whether he will accept Christ or reject Him; feels
that when this probation issues in failure in this life,
that is, when the sinner in this life rejects Christ, '
such rejection is due to the hindrances of the sinner's
present environment; and believes that, when this
~?1?? i? ? ? ...
nisi piuuauuu nas issuea in tne sinner s rejection of
Christ, he will after death be put on a second proba-'
tion in a more favorable environment. The"cTistinctive
arlicle of the theory of second probation is that
there are two probations, one in less favorable conditions
before death, and the other in more favorable
conditions after death.
The germ of the theory is the denial, and it may
be unconscious denial, that the gospel as the sinner
now hears it requires him to make a final decision for
or against Christ. That the gospel thus urgently
demands of men decision, and presses them on to finality
of decision, is evervwhere the dortrinp nf ^printiim
If the sinner yields to the Holy Spirit's persuasion,
and accepts Christ, this is final, God and the sinner
uniting in eternal friendship; but if the sinner resists
the persuasion of the Holy Spirit as he presses
Christ on the sinner's acceptance, and rejects Christ,
this is final, God and the sinner standing thereafter
apart never to be reconciled. This is the one unforgivable
sin; and whoever hears the gospel is in the
way to this sin as certainly as he is in the way to
saving faith. He may turn toward either of them;
Vio mno* ? - e 11
iiv inuoi luiu luvvm u une oi inern.
But jnany who hear the gospel persuade themselves