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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