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February 5, 1913] T H X P
pie. People were stirred under the ministry
of Henry Martyn because he was a flame of
fire. He was boiling for God. If the church of
God would only get into the depths with him
and be content to abide in no other place, then
would nrofonnd onnvipfion Hp witnoeoo^ nmnn..
the unsaved. There would be such a sense of
eternal values, such other worldliness about
her as to arrest the attention of a thoughtless
and indifferent world to such an extent that
many would cry out as on the day of Pentecost,
"Men and brethren, what must we do to
be saved?"?Living Water.
THE PICTURE OF A GAMBLER.
There is a quiet little room opening out of
the bar, and here sit four jovial youths. The
cards are out, the wines are in. The fourth is
a reluctant hand. FTe dnps nnt lnro +V10 di-inV
nor approve the game. He sips the wine upon
the importunity of a friend. He is too polite
to refuse. He shuffles and deals. The night
wears on, it is getting old, its air grows fresher,
the east is gray, the gambling, drinking and
hilarious laughter is over. The youth wends
his way homeward. He soliloquizes, "This has
not been gambling. All were gentlemen. There
was no cheating, simply a convivial evening."
Again, seated at a carved marble table, pale,
watchful, though weary, their eyes pierce the
cards and furtively read each others' faces.
At last they rise without a word, some with satisfaction,
their faces brightly haggard, scrape
off the piles of money; others dark, sullen, silent,
fierce, move away from their lost monev.
The darkest and fiercest of the four was the
man who did not mean to gamble, who did not
care to drink. He says to the lingering sting
of conscience, "I have a right to gamble. I
have a right to be damned if I choose. Whose
business is itt"
Still again, when years have rolled away,
four men meet in a dilapidated house, around
a broken table, seated on boxes, kegs and rickety
chairs, filthy with tobacco, grease and
lionor. One has a pirata face, one is a dropsical
wretch, the third is a scoundrel, the fourth
a burly negro. Drunken sailors, drinking women.
who should have died lone aeo
m O "O ? "
all that wag womanly died, are the spectators.
The last few stolen dollars lost, the temper
eone. each charges the other with cheating.
Hitrh words ensne, followed by blows. The
whole pang bursts out the door, heating, biting,
scratching, rolling over and over in the dirt
and dust. The worst, the fiercest, the drunkenest
is our young friend, who began by not
carine to drink nor to play the game.
Again for the fourth time. Tt is a bright
nay. a multitude of men gather to see a murderer
hung. A cart brings on a thrice guarded
wretch. At the gallows ladder his courage
fails, his coward feet refuse to ascend. Dragged
ui>. he is supported by hustling officials. His
brain reels, his eyes swim, a minister utters a
prayer by his leaden ear, the noose is fixed,
and the signal is given. A shudder runs
throuurh the crowd, he swings free, his convulsed
limbs, stretched down, hang heavily and
Still, and ha whn V1- ?v- *
- u^au tu KOIUU1B, WHO SimpiV
entered to make up a prame, who did not care
for the drink nor for the cards, ended with
atahhinpr an enrapred victim whom he had
fleeced. He lias played his last prame?himself
th<? stake.?Exchange.
Let no man say became limb -norm ??"*?> i/*n?
In nomine that it will never come. Let ns rather
?av a* we wait in the doom. How eloriotm will
that day be, of which the twilight dawn has la*tpd
nineteen hundred yearn!?Alexander Maelaren.
RESBYTERIAN OF THE.SO
THE LORD'S DAY.
This is the age when we begin to hear o good
deal about the proper observance of the Lord's
Day, commonly called Sunday. Is it a day
for sports, rides, visits to the country, and tak
mg one s ease at nome in tne neat 01 tne clay 7
Or are these things wrong!
The answer is best found, perhaps, by putting
the emphasis where it belongs in the very name
of the day, calling it to begin with the Lord's
Day. That is what St. John called it, and first
and before all that is the true designation. The
earliest history of the Church, given us in The
Acts of the Apostles, shows this day consecrat
eel from the very first to the Risen Lord. Coextensive
with the Christian Church in time
and apace has been the observance of the first
day of the week as holy, because it is the
Lord's Day.
Whatever, then, may be our attitude towards
the pursuit of those things which are often miscalled
recreation, a true Christian is bound to
determine their place in his life by answering
the question squarely and before God. Is my
conduct, and are the surroundings in which I
n1o/>a ?i. ?:AI- i 1? * * "
w^ocu cuiiaisicut wini Keeping noiy me
Lord's Day?" And it is impossible to think
that the spirit of the day has been kept, unless
first we have come into God's presence in that
peculiar sense expressed by public worship.
Some one has written in effect as the best
test of the moral code, "So act as if by your
will your act were to become the universal
law." That is a good sentence with which to
test your attitude towards Sunday services.
Your act shows what you want. Is it a fact
that throughout the summer you want no sacrament,
no praise, no prayer offered to God
at the altar?
The right observance of the Lord's Day rests
upon laying down the broad principle of keeping
the day holy. Rules and regulations for
private conduct follow. But no private interpretation
can put aside the universal practice
of the Church to consecrate the day by the due
observance of the acts of public worship. The
Sunday we allow to pass without its acts of devotion
may he a day of pleasure, hut is a total
failure as a holy day.?Parish Leaflet.
THE SECURITY OF CHRISTIANITY.
Thfi nrlr nf fin/1 uron katmi? 4'" :i
moo UO&1 inrvrii LI 11 11 WHS
surrounded by the arras of earthly defenders.
In captivity its sanctity was sufficient to vindicate
it from insult, and to lay the hostile fiend
prostrate on the threshold of its own temple.
The real security of Christianity is to he found
in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite
adaptation to the human heart, in the facility
with which its scheme accommodates itself to
the capacity of every human intellect, in the
light with which it brightens the great mystery
of the grave. To such a system it can
bring no addition of dignity or strength, that it
is part and parcel of the common law. It is not
now for the first time left to rely on the force
ui. us own oeamy. its suonme theology confounded
the great Grecian schools in the fair
conflict of reason with reason. The bravest and
wisest of the Caesars fonnd their arms and
their policy unavailing, when opposed to the
weapons that were not carnal, and the kingdom
that was not of this world. The victory
which Porphyry and Diocletian failed to gain
is not, to all appearance, reserved for any of
thnoo nr)in liowo in tl>i? J!?-*
?uv iiutu in kino nm- uircvieu tneir attacks
against the last restraint of the powerful
and the last hope of the wretched. The
whole history of Christianity hears witness to
the fact that it is the only agency by which
mankind can he restored and bronprht hack to
the condition for which our Lord so earnestly
prayed.?Sel ect ed.
t> * H (101) 5
THE GREAT SURRENDER.
That humorous philosopher, Robert J. Burdette,
pictures somewhere the man that has
the tinkering habit. "Where he should rip
off a rotting roof from ridge to cornice, he will
stick in a shingle, a piece of slate, a scrap of
tin, amid ever-increasing leaks, dry rot, and
general decay. He braces and bolsters and
patches walls and fences until his farm looks
as though it had a combination of Saint Vitus'
dance and delirium tremens." And that ia
what lots of us are doing with our lives, trying
to patch them up, when what they need is tearing
down and rebuilding.
How often in the city I see the exhilarating
process! Down it comes, a four or five story
building of costly marble, like as not. Sculptured
ornament^ polished pillars, carved woodwork,
great plate glass windows?they are all
carted away. Even the cellar is pulled out,
like the root of a decaved tooth. Not a narti
tion is left to mark the glan of the old building.
And then, deeper atid deeper, the earth
is hollowed out two or three stories below the
surface. Piles are driven. Great masses of
concrete are poured in. For the new building
is to rise ten, twenty, perhaps thirty stories into
the air! A new, splendid plan. Fresh, solid,
beautiful materials. Deeper, higher, broader.
That is the way men build in the material
world.
Oh, for courage to build thus in the spiritual
world! Put away the old man. Put on the
new man.
Bishop Whipple told of an Indian that did
it. He was a terrible and famous warrior, but
he came to lay his tomahawk at the feet of
ni ! ? A. m a ? ? - -
v^iinsi. 10 lest mm, tne missionary said, "Let
me cut your hair." The Indian's scalplock is
for his enemy to grasp?if he can. To allow it
to be cut means squawdom. "Yes," said the
Indian, "I am in earnest; if I can be a follower
of Jesus Christ, I can suffer anything." So
the missionary cut off the symbolic lock. The
warrior was almost frenzied by the jeers that
followed, but he stood his ground like a hero;
he had made the great surrender.
Now that is precisely what Christ wants us
to do; first, to be His in our hearts, through
and through; then, to be willing and eager to
snow ourselves His before men.
"Surrender," after all, is hardly the word
for it; that involves a suspicion of disgrace, an
indication of failure. Really, to become
Christ's is to begin for the first time to succeed.
It is the greatest honor that could possibly
come to one. It is as when a warrior kneels
before his sovereign and rises a knight. It is
as when a midshipman is made admiral of a
fleet of battleships. No comparison can indicate
the glory of the alliance we enter into
when we become Christ's.
Pnr tVlQf is nnlw Vinlf A# ? YKTV.?? ? *?
- V..IJ nail VI It. II ncu IYC UCcome
Christ's, Christ becomes ours. He was
ours before, in the sense that He longed for
us, and did for us what we would let Him;
hut now all barriers are down, and we have
free access to His infinite stores of power and
wisdom and joy. That means an instant enabling
and enriching of our life beyond our wildest
dreams, and a continual progress in power
and bliss through the endless reaches of eternity.?Amos
R. "Wells.
Culled as all are to be the children of God,
yon are called in a special sense, to whom God
has, for even the briefest period, made himself
known in feelings of piety sent by him, in
tenderness of spirit sent by him, in holy hopes
sent by him, in deadness to the world sent by
him, in humble, happy dependence?his and
only his invaluable gift.?Archer Butler.