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IN HEAVEN.
By Carrie Primrose.
I dreamed I stood at Heaven's igate,
" "v/ovi pvuiio a%j i Ui o mtu 1'UOll C oiiwuc,
Reflected they the light of God,
For there no light of sun doth shine.
Behold an angel gleaming white,
In holy radiance standing there!
1 said, "Wilt thou iny feet direct
To 'Him who sits upon the throne?"
"Yea. thou canBt come, for He hath paid
The ransom for thy guilt and stain,
Behold thy name 1b written there.
Within that holy book of life!"
(I looked, and Lo! as he had said,
My name in His own blood was there!
Then full of love, and awe, and joy,
I fell upon my face and werpt.
"Why weepest thou?" the angel said,
"Ix>ok thou on yon celestial throng, x
Perchance thou wilt thy loved ones see."
"Why weepest thou?" again these words,
Then face to face saw I my Lord!
I knew Him by the nail-prints there,
As wide He spread His holy hands
And bade me stand upon my feet.
Then worshipped I my Lord and King,
And joned the Heavenly Choir's song?
"Worthy the l^amb who once was slain,
To Hira be honor, glory, and might!"
Then the saints, and hosts of angels
Cast their crowns down at His feet,
Pralsinig loud our Lord, Redeemer,
Who shed Hds blood that we might live.
"Hallelujah!" sang I so joyful,
"Never aught from Christ can sever,
Those who trust Hds love and mercy,
In His presence safe forever!
Foes on earth Satanic, fearful,
Ne'er can snatch us from His hand!"
Then saw I the mansions waiting,
V place in Heaven prepared for you?
O Ecstacy! by eight I knew,
The faces of my loved ones there.
And in that throng of white robed saints.
Beheld once more my loved ones mourned?
Then God my tears did wipe away,
For no more "weeping is there here.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
The glories of our Heavenly houne.
Greenville, MIsb.
BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN.
By Dr. J. H. Jowett.
"Blessed are they that mourn." But this
does not include every kind of mourning. There
is a sorrow which is "unto death." It is destructive
and deadly. It is selfish, prayerless,
unaspiring. It has regard neither to man nor
to God. Not of these can it he said, "Blessed
are they that mourn." This beatitude is spoken
to the Lord's immediate disciples, to those who,
however imperfectly, are following Him in the
way of life. It was spoken to His disciples:
"His disciples came unto Him, and He taught
them." And, further, the beatitude does not
mean that the comfort that is given to a sor
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rowing VyiinsiiHii maun an wc ^rici av*nj. ahu
life of the apostles, and especially the life of
St. Paul, bear witness that men can have the
I sacred comfort of the Lord and yet share the
travail that makes the kingdom come.
How shall they be comforted? To what kind
of sorrow will the Comforter bring the strengthening
balm ? In the New Testament we find two
great primary forms of sorrow. There is sorrow
which is created by sin, and sorrow which
H is created by death. It is not that these two in
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SC
Readings
elude every form of grief, but the Heavenly
-mnisier who can ueai wun mese outstanding
needs will be able to help in every kind 01
trouble. If lie can ease the galling weight of
these loads he can make evqry burden light.
"Blessed are they that mourn" for personal
sin, who wish that the rebellion had never happened,
who are oppressed in the remembrance
of it, and who are humbly and heartily sorry,
and who confess their sincere regret unto the
Lord, "for they shall be comforted." And
what shall they receive in the way of comfort?
First of all, they shall receive the peace and
forgiveness. Now, there are two words in the
New Testament which are translated by the
common English word "forgive." They are
both very picturesque and suggestive words. If
we look a little afield at their wider applica
tions, we shall find a very tender light upon the
meaning of forgiveness. One of the words is
used with the significance of divorce, "Whosoever
shall put away his wife." And in the ministry
of forgiveness grace interposes between
the soul and its guilt and divorces them. They
have become wedded together in most unholy
and imprisoning wedlock, and forgiveness sets
the prisoner free. The other word has a somewhat
similar significance, and is used in the
sense of leaving a thing behind. "They immediately
left the ship." And just as the disciples
left that boat on the beach, so, by the
ministry of forgiveness, we can leave our sin
on the beach, never to return to it, and can go
out into a new life in a new and untrodden
world. This is the comfort of the Holy Ghost.
And with the peace of forgiveness there is
also given the joy of communion. When the
"perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart" is
removed, we are introduced into a unembarrassed
fellowship with our Father in heaven.
We taste the sweets of a restored relation. We
are at home again with the Lord, and we enjoy
the glorious liberty of the children of God.
And with this peace and joy we pass into the
buoyant strength of recovered health. The
spiritual substance which we had wasted in
sinful living is little by little given back to us.
Withered powers of soul become alive again.
Dulled perceptions are quickened. Our sympathies
with God and man are refined and enriched.
In all these ways does the Paraclete
bring comfort to those who mourn for their
sins.
And the second form of sorrow mentioned by
the New Testament is the sorrow occasioned bv
bereavement. Sin ereat.es the one, and death
is the cause of the other. The Lord annihilates
the gulf that was created by guilt What can
he do with the awful vacancy created by death ?
His comfort is peculiarly immediate and strong
and sweet. And how does He comfort us ? First
of all, I think He comforts us in the dark sorrow
of bereavement by helping us to look out
of the window of love. Now, the window of
love looks out upon the past, upon the days we
lived together with the loved one before bereavement
came. And the gracious ministry of
the window of love is this?that it only revpulo
f A llrt ? A 11 -4-1 ' *
*w.0 wj u? me xuveiy. aii mat was beautiful
in the loved one shines out in the light. All
the frailties and infirmities are seen in new
views. Some beauties we have never noticed
appear in this comforting retrospect. Every
mourner in Christ Jesus knows the love-window
and the gracious things that are unveiled for
the comfort of the soul.
And there is a second window to which the
Holy Spirit leads us in our grief. This is the
lU T E [ September 11, 1912
window of faith, and it looks out upon the present.
We gaze through this window upon our
broken, desolate, lonely life, and we see footprints
on the road?nay, we see the Lord Himself.
There is given to us an intimate sense of
Providential nearness and guidance. We are
endowed with the assurance that God is awake
and tenderly at work. When we look through
the faith-window, life is seen not as chaos but
as order, and its happenings are not the blind
issues of chance, but the outcome of the graciously
tender plan of our Father in heaver.
And there is a third window to which the
Comforter takes the soul, unveiling to Him prospects
that bring exquisite comfort. This is the
window of hope, and it looks out upon the morrow,
and through that window we see our Father's
house with the many mansions. We see
the intimacy of its fellowship: "Where 1 am
there ye shall be also." We see the gathering
together of the scattered family to be 4 4 for ever
with the Lord.'' Through this window of hope
we gaze 44O'er moor and fen and crag and torrent,"
and beyond all these we see the fair
dawning in which the angel faces smile 4 4 which
we have loved long since and lost a while."
The comfort which 1 have mentioned is very
real, and every sorrowing soul can obtain it in
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muouij oi. grace, li is onereci WltllOUt
money and without price. There is no other
comfort for sorrows such as these. The one
who sorrows for sin may see an opiate in thepleasure
of the world, but he will awake again
to the strained reality, and his grief will be
more poignant than ever. And the one wno
sorrows in bereavement will exist in an everdarkening
prison unless there comes the comfort
of the Light of life. Our Lord Jesus came
"to comfort all that mourn." 'Earth lias no
sorrow that heaven cannot heal.''?The* Christian
World.
THE USEFUL SHAKE.
The shark is undoubtedly a 'dog with a bad
name, 'He is called opprobriously tiger of the
seas,' or the 'sailor's foe,' or any other scurrilous
name which happens to be handy. Much
mud is thrown at him, and, as he seldom hnds
a defender, most of it sticks. Hard lines this!
Because in reality this blue water bogy is a humble
servant, who performs the duties connected
with the sanitation of the seas.
The shark is a common scavenger and general
undertaker of the ocean. He is not, and for
reasons connected with his very moderate speed
limit, never can be primarily a fish of prey.
Open any captured shark, and you will find
clear proof that this is so. A few tangled bits
of pone VnTTl O + J
?x? j , uwi/tvivu uuuicu uctri uui, a
corked bottle containing an insulting message
to the finder (thrown overboard by some nautical
wag), or a sailors cap which has been lost
in a gale, all tend to show that the shark is a
fish of business-like habits, with a keen eye to
any chance windfalls which may come in his
way. But the more digestible contents of his
stomach, consisting mainly of carrion of every
kind, all give the cleariest olfactory ervidence
that the original owners of them were not alive
?in fact, were very much dead?when this marine
sanitary inspector came along and, condemning
them as nuisances removed them into
lib own internal refuse bin.
A large* accumulation of carefully collected
evidence on this point proves conclusively that
there are, as a matter of fact, only two articles
of this ordinary menu?namely, an occasional
unwary sea-fowl which he may happen t? surprise
asleep on the surface of the water, and
the ugly, octopuslike squil, whose limited powers
of locomotion give a chance to our hungry fourknot
prowler.?Pearson's Magazine.
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