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SAVIOUR LOOK UPON ME.
Gracious Saviour, look upon me,
See my helpless low estate;
In my sin and shame and sorrow
t the Mercy Seat 1 wait.
Send on me the Holy Spirit,
lhat He may my heart renew;
Hard and dull and blind and sinful.
Much 1 need what He can do.
While I tremble at God's justice.
Words of mercy come to me;
May the Spirit breathe upon me.
May He lead me Lord to Thee!
As I sink in death's dark shadows
Life is offered, and 1 cry,
"Quicken me, 0 gracious Spirit,
Lighten me, or 1 must die!**
Loet in sin. wretched and guilty.
Of salvation free 1 hear;
Heal me. O thou Son of David!
Pity me while Thou art near!"
At Thy feet, anxious and needy,
I ould kneel and urge this plea;
"Af I call upon Thee, Saviour,
Let Thy mercy rest on me!"
?Addison.
THE SECRET OF PERSONAL HELPFUL.
NESS.
BY J. B. matt, D. D.
Every true Christian desires to be helpful.
He iougs to make his iiie a dressing to as many
people as poaaibie. lie wishes to make the world
better, hi* neighborhood brighter and sweeter,
every life he touches ui even casual association,
somewhat more beautiiui. dust how we must
live if our lives would reach this ideal it is worth
while that we should think.
We cannot come upon this kind of a life accidentally.
We do not driit into a place and condition
of great usefulness. Nothing but love
will make another happier, will coniiort sorrow,
will relieve loneliness, will give cheer. You never
can be ol any real help to a man it you do not
care for him, and you care lor him ouiy so far
as you are willing to make sacritices to heip him.
It is never by chance, therefore, that one hnds
one 'a sell living a life that is full of helpfulness.
Such a life comes only through a regeneration
that makes it new. That is what it means to
become a Christian. The secret of Christ was
abounding personal helpfulness. We say he
gave his life for the world and we think of the
croas. Bt the cross was in his life from the beginning.
lie never had a thought or a wish
for himself. Ever he was ready to give up his
own comfort, his own ease, his own preferment,
that another might be pleased or helped. w ith
this thought m mind, it will be a most prontable
piece of Bible reading to go through the
gospels just to find how Christ treated the peo
pie he met. He wu always kind, not only polite
and courteous, but doing kindly, thoughtful,
obliging things. His inquiry concerning every
person was, "Can 1 do anything for youf Can
1 share your burden T Can 1 relieve you of your
suffering1" The Good Samaritan was Christ's
illustration of love and was a picture of his
own life.
Ever that is the one answer to our question.
There is no way of personal helpfulness but his
way, and there is no other secret of attaining
it bnt his secret. You cannot learn it from a
book of rules. It is not a system of etiquette.
It is a qew life?it is Christ living in the heart.
It is Deraonal helnfnlneas of which we urn
thinking. A man may be useful in his community.
may eren be a public benefactor.may
4 amah far the race, and yet may fail altoI
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S
headings
'?
getber to be a real helper of the individual lives
he touches in his daily associations. A man may
do much good with his money, relieving distress,
fonding institutions, establishing schools, and
may not be a helper of man in personal ways.
People do turn to him with their needs. The
sorrowing know nothing of comfort ministered
by him. The bafflled and perplexed do not look
to him for guidance, the tempted for deliverance.
the desnairinir fnr pViopt* on#l ??????
ment. It is this personal helpfulness that means
the most in the close contacts of human lives.
Jesus never gave money to any one in need,
so far as we are told. lie did not pay rents for
the poor, nor buy food or clothes, but he was
always doing good in ways that meant far more
for them than if he had helped with money.
There were needs that only love and kindness
can meet. Countless people move about among
us these days starving for love, dying of loneliness.
You can help them immeasurably by becoming
their friend, not in any marked or unusual
way, perhaps, but by doing them a simple
kindness, by showing a little human interest in
them, by turning aside to do a little favor, hv
manifesting sympathy, if they are in sorrow.
A little note of a few lines sent to a neighbor
in grief has been known to start an influence
of comfort and strength that could not be
measured.
It is the little things of love that count in
6uch ministry?the little nameless acts, the small
words of gentleness, the looks that tell of interest
and care and sympathy. Life is hard for
many people and nothing is more needed continually
than encouragement and cheer. There
are men who never do anything great in their
lives and yet they make it sunnier all about them
and make all who know them hannier hmvpr
stronger. There are women, overburdened
themselves, perhaps, but so thoughtful, so sympathetic,
so obliging, so full of tittle kindnesses,
that they make the spot of the world ill which
they live more like heaven.
How can we learn this lesson of personal helpfulness
T It is not merely a matter of geniality
of disposition, a matter of natural temperament.
Any one can learn it if he takes Christ for his
teacher. Then self must be displaced in thought
and purpose and affection by "the other man.''
If love till the heart, every expression of the life
radiates helpfulness. A young woman, speaking
of the way different people had been a comfort
to her in a great sorrow, said, "1 wish some
persons knew just how much their faces can
euwiori oiners. 1 uen sDe told of an old gentleman
she sometimes sat beside in the street
car. He did not know her, but she was always
helped by just being near to him and seeing
his face.
There is a great deal of this unconscious helpfulness
in the world. Indeed, many of the best
things we do, we do without knowing we are
doing them. If we are full of love we will be
helping others wherever we go, and the things
we do not plan to do when we go out in the
morning will be the divinest things of the whole
day.
Not only is the life of personal helpfulness
most worth while in the measure of good it does,
in its inflence upon others, but no other life
brings back to-itself such rewards of peace, of
strength, of comfort, of joy. What of lore you
giro to another yon will not really fire away?
O U T H fFebrnmry 14, 1912
you hare it still in yourself in larger measure
than before. Then no gain one gets in this world
is equal to the love of hearts that one receives
from those one serves in unselfish love.
"My dear] the little things 1 did for you
Today have brought me comfort, one by one,
As through the purple dark a shaft of sun
Strikes far as dawn, and changes dusk to blue;
The little things it cost me naught to do.
Remembering how life's sands may run,
Today a web of purest gold have spun
Across the gulf that lies between us two."
The Epworth llerald
THE COMPLETED CIBCLE.
The rainbow which we see on the clouds during
a iamiig *no?er is uuiy a uau ciicie. tt uut
cnuu nas not Moiiueied, as uu loosed upon Luis
woudious ami oeautuui Dow, now rar tue otner
haa goes! iuia wuo una not waned lo go in
sealen oi tne luo.ed Dag ol goid said in cniidnue
lo De nidueu near tue Dase on wnicn each
end ol me loveiy aucn resist the raiuuow never
loses lis attractiveness, whetner we luink ol its
uaiuiai Deauty or as a syuiDoi and piedgc 01 me
convenani ol peace and saicty.
'ihe rainbow wnicii John saw in heaven was a
completed eircie. '"there was a ram Dow round
aDoul the throne, in sigui like uuio an euieraid."
this bow oi perpetual beauty completely encircled
the throne on which sat he who was to
look upon "like a jasper and a sardine stone."
Everywhere around it was visible the pledge of
the covenant of grace and truth. More excellent
and enduring by far than any band of gold ever
placed upon the betrothed maiden's finger as
?. Ui tuuvjr u> iue OaliU Ui gtOiy W UiCU encode*
cue uuoue ui nan wuo *ove? u* uuu gave
uuuseel iur us. oueuaugeauie ui iu trcauueas
uuU beauty it wornd a* way* stand a* a reiuiutier
01 uie wiata wmcn .sinners UeaeiVid, nuiu ?uicu
iue ransomed were redeemed by iue btood 01 uuu
who sittetu upon lUe tuiuue. ihis coiupieuci
circle is also llie pledge ot tiie eudless, undying
unchanging love winch he shall ever uianuost
lowaru luoae wuoui ue uaa leueemeu.
in it not au>o a lennuder tuat whne we understand
out a pari 01 Uod a ways Here, in ueaveu
we shall know in full? Now we know in part,
then we ahall know even as we are known. Now
we see through a giasa darkly, then we ahall aee
face to lace, ilere we aee but a segment of God's
plana aud purposes; then we ahall see the completed
circle. "What 1 do thou knowest not now,
but thou shalt know hereafter."
When Lady Huntington visited a famous tapestry
factory she was shown a web in the loom.
''I see nothing wonderfully beautiful here." she
remarked to the guide. "Ah, madam, you are
looking upon the wrong side. Wait until the
web is finished, taken out of the loom and wheeled
around; then you will see its wondrous
beauty." Here we look at God's ways often
from the wrong side, and they 9eem like a purposeless,
chaotic tangle. WTait until they are
completely wrought out; then shall we adore
him for much that now seems so incomprehensible.?Christian
Union Herald.
How unhappy that man or woman must be
who i ? B I uuva iliaiuu>tino anmnnno ?! ? ??
? ? - .. ? ^ W uMM|fvv*iu0 OVUIWUC cwc, UI | nui BC
still, everybody else. It is a condition of selfexaggeration
as well as of depreciation of others,
and like all selfish traits, carries its sting within
itself and uses it upon itself. It bespeaks.poverty
of principle and lowness of motive in the
one suspicious far more than on the part of those
suspected. Think well of others, attribute good
motives and live to them, and you will be apt to
have the same for yourself. Do the opposite and
you might as well write it down^at once that
you have gauged others by yourself.
i