THAT God designs that young men shall be tested on their free will, in the matter of character formation, is set forth in the scripture which says, “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes.” Here is the privilege, but there is a sure result: “But know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore, remove sorrow [margin, “anger”] from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh; for childhood and youth are vanity.” Eccl. 11:9, 10.
This principle of a probationary or testing time, with final accountability for its use, applies also to those of mature years. “If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” Judging was not Christ’s mission at that time. He was here as a teacher, a mediator, a leader of those who would follow His counsel. But there was to be a reckoning time: “He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him; the words that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” John 12:47, 48.
The principle is therefore established, that while God does not compel people to obey His Word, all are under obligation to do so, as all will find out in the judgment. So it is better to repent and believe now, while there is mercy, than to put it off until mercy is withdrawn. “Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.” Luke 11:28. “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.”
G.
THE TYRANNY OF FASHION.
Taking away the saloon does not take away any man’s personal privilege, so far as using anything he pleases is concerned. It takes away the privilege of keeping haunts of vice to allure the weak and unwary, places where all manner of criminality is inspired and concocted. In this item we call attention to the compelling of men to drink. At first thought you may conclude that this is all imagination, but it is not. “Come and take a drink with me;” “Aren’t you going to treat? I treated last;” “Well, boys, let us go and have something.” These, and others of like import, are expressions that lure many to drink when they really do not want to drink. But it is the fashion. How often men say, “No, I do not want a drink now,” but are nevertheless cajoled into it by their “friends”! If one refuses, the saloon man says, “You are taking a shingle off my house; I’ll remember that.”
Many, many times, men who do not want to drink, who have vowed they would not drink that day, are tempted by the treating custom to take a drink. Then the obligation to treat again urges on to further indulgence till the desire arises, and is past resistance. How many times the victim begins a protracted “spree” by the urgency of companions to drink, against his will and better judgment! Were it not for the treating custom there would not be a tithe of the drinking that there is, and many a poor victim would be the better able to break away. And this custom is an outgrowth of the saloon.
Take away the saloon, and the inclination of men to drink will be greatly reduced. Many often drink in company, if a saloon is convenient, when otherwise they would not think of it, would not want it. Why not do away with these temptations to throw away money, waste time, and destroy reason?
“Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also,” Hab. 2:15.
A PROSPEROUS “BLIGHT.”
LESS than two years ago the prohibition proposition was introduced in the town of Winters. The liquor dealers and their sympathizers predicted the worst “blight” that could possibly strike the business interests of the community.
THE RESULT OF PROHIBITION—The grass grows in front of the jail in Winters, Cal., in less than a year after prohibition ordinance takes effect—Illustration from “California Voice.”
There were then six saloons doing a flourishing business by taking in the working men’s money in exchange for the various decoctions usually dispensed in such places. But prohibition won the day, and the “blighting” process began—on the liquor business and its results.
Writing of the matter in less than a year afterward, a correspondent of the California Voice said: “Now there is not a saloon or gambling den in the town. The environments have improved 100 per cent. The churches are better attended, and all kinds of business has increased. The stores are busy places; the mechanics have so much work that building and repairing have to be postponed; hotels are crowded, and rooms in private houses are in demand every night.”
The pioneer merchant of the place is quoted as saying: “Things have changed. There is not a drop of steam or bottle beer to be had for love or money. This is not a good place for the hobos any more, but it will be a good place for sober and industrious working men and women—we want them to come and they will find employment.”
According to the report of the town clerk, three months before the prohibition ordinance went into effect, the balance in the treasury was $616.75. Nine months after the ordinance began to be enforced, the balance was $2,599.19. Yet men in saloon towns argue that they can not dispense with the liquor licenses and keep up expenses!
Mr. G. W. Thissell, Sr., of Winters, is authority for the statement, made at that time, that this financial report “ought to convince any business man that, if working men do not spend their money in the saloons and gambling dens they will spend it for the necessaries of life for their families. Where one of the saloons was run, the saloon-keeper’s wife has opened a first-class restaurant, and it is well patronized.”
Now the only evidence of the predicted “blight” that has come to the town as a result of prohibition, is that which befell the jail. The accompanying illustration is from a photograph of that institution, showing the grass growing undisturbed in front of it. Any town can well afford to suffer such a “blight” as that.
HEREDITARY EFFECTS OF DRUNKENNESS.
The drinker himself is not the only sufferer from his vice. Indeed, it seems in many cases that he is not the greatest sufferer. He may even live out his threescore years and ten, in apparent defiance of the laws of nature and the warnings of friends; but look at his children. Are they as strong and robust as he?—O, no; instead, we often see them frail, nervous, imbecile, idiotic, poor specimens of the race. The iniquities of the father are visited upon the children.
Dr. Edmunds says: “There are thousands who have had diseased physical organisms bequeathed to them, and they are suffering from an irritable brain and an eccentric habit of thought, because their father drank spirits.”
Intemperance, more than any other cause, fills our lunatic and idiot asylums. According to the statistics of insanity in France, thirty-four per cent. of the cases of lunacy among males were due to intemperance. One-half of the inmates of the Dublin7insane asylum owe their disease to the use of liquor.
Lord Shaftesbury, chairman of the English Commission on Lunacy, in his report to Parliament stated that six out of every ten lunatics in the asylums were made such by alcohol.
Dr. S. G. Howe found that the parents of one hundred and forty-five out of three hundred idiots were habitual drunkards.
Nothing so tends to perpetuate the evil results of intemperance as the saloon, with its every-day and every-night allurements. The saloon, with all its disastrous fruits, can not exist without the sanction of the people. If the people who see its dreadful work, will set their faces against it, it will have to go.
But no system of license ever will eradicate the saloon. To license it, even for a day, is to encourage it. The higher the license, the more the dealer imagines he is a public benefactor, and the more the people are inclined to look upon it in that light.
AS SHOULD HAVE BEEN FORESEEN.
For several years the state of Indiana has been fighting the saloon evil by means of remonstrance instead of prohibition. When the remonstrance plan was inaugurated, says the Patriot Phalanx, “the remonstrances were against individuals and not directly against the saloon business. One year ago the law was changed in this regard by the Moore amendment, so remonstrance could be filed against granting of any license to retail intoxicating liquors, that is, against the business, in a township or ward, the prohibition to be good for two years. As before, when the law was first enacted, and later when the blanket remonstrance was discovered and pronounced all right, so even more when this last amendment was adopted, the saloon was practically doomed from about four-fifths of Indiana's territory—if we were to believe the prophecies of its sponsors and special friends.”
The result of this method, however, has not been a reduction of saloons, but rather an increase. The state statistician gives this report: “The official record, furnished by the state statistician, is this: Number of saloons, 1898, 4,013; 1899, 4,267; 1900, 4,370; 1901, 4,877; 1902, 5,169; 1903, 5,049; 1904, 5,163; 1905, 5,257.”
Of the difficulties encountered in trying to make the remonstrance law a success, the Phalanx says: “It would be a long story to tell of the difficulties and hardships endured in trying to make this remonstrance law a working success. In numerous instances, hundreds of signers of remonstrances have been summoned to the county seat to prove their signatures. Where remonstrators lost out, costs are charged up against them, amounting sometimes to hundreds of dollars. With a local-option election, secrecy of the vote is preserved; with a remonstrance, every signer is known and becomes liable to the persecutions of liquor-sellers and their tools. In a local-option contest only those who vote are counted; in remonstrance method all voters not signing are regarded as in favor of saloons.”
Then follows this very logical conclusion: “It is impossible to kill the saloon by selling it the right to exist. We first give it the general right to be in the state, making it legal, then try to undo that work by these local efforts. The reasons for failure are very apparent.”
WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENCE.
Anti-Mormon Church-and-Statism Rebuked in the Senate.
To unbiased observers it has been apparent all along that the campaign which has been, and is being, waged for the expulsion of Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, the Mormon apostle, from the Senate of the United States, was inspired more by religious and theological sentiment, zeal, and prejudice, than by considerations civic, social, and rational, which afford the only proper basis of political and legal action in this country, and that therefore this campaign was by no means free from one of the chief evils and offenses alleged against Senator Smoot and the Mormons as a reason for his exclusion from the Senate—the evil and offense of ignoring and violating the principle of separation of church and state by making, or seeking to make, religion and theology direct and dominate political action. Though not asserted in terms, it has been assumed in this campaign that political action could be had and determined by religious sentiment, and that offense in creed or action against religious and theological sentiment was a proper ground for excluding a man from political office. It is therefore gratifying to all who stand for a strict and consistent adherence to the principle of separation of church and state that this anti-Mormon church-and-statism has at last been recognized and rebuked in the Senate of the United States, where it seeks to effectuate itself through the action of that body, and where petitions inspired largely by it have been pouring in constantly since the election of Senator Smoot, demanding his exclusion.
In presenting one of these petitions, “signed by several thousand representative women of the state of California,” in the Senate on February 19, Senator Perkins of California stated that he had been requested to accompany the presentation of the petition “with a few remarks defining my position in relation to their demand,” and then proceeded to make the following little religious liberty speech, which shows that he recognizes that the great principle which he calls attention to is being ignored in campaign and demand for the exclusion of Senator Smoot, and that it is needful that the principle should be emphasized in connection therewith:
The right to petition Congress on any subject is one guaranteed by the Constitution, and will ever be held sacred, and I do not think any member of this body would consider that any circumstances whatever would justify him in refusing to submit a respectful appeal made by any body of citizens.
The signers of the petition which I here submit are among the religious, cultured, and most public-spirited women of the state of California. They are to be commended for the interest in public affairs which their action in this case demonstrates.
There can be no doubt that whenever public-spirited women express their wishes in this or any similar way, they are actuated by the best and most pure motives, which must and do command our sincere respect.
But in petitioning this body in a manner like that here referred to, a fact is sometimes lost sight of that we do not stand toward it in the relation which we bear to almost all other questions which come before us. In this we occupy the position of both
The Testimony of Sixty Years.
The following is not the testimony of one or twenty men, but of thousands abstaining and other thousands not abstaining: The United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution of England has been in existence sixty years. It has kept strictly separate accounts of its Abstinence Division and its Non-Abstinence Division. Such is the difference that the company grants to abstainers a rebate of fifteen per cent. on their annual premiums, whereas non-abstainers are required to pay in full. Based on such statistics, T. P. Whittaker, M. P., in the Contemporary Review of March, 1904, states: “It will be observed that during the strenuous working years of manhood, from twenty-five to sixty years of age, the annual mortality rates among abstainers were, on the average, forty per cent. lower than among non-abstainers.”
Private Belief Should Not Weigh
judge and jury, whose sworn duty it is to hear impartially the evidence adduced, to weigh it carefully, to admit for consideration only such as is relevant and of undoubted impartiality, and to render a verdict solely on the merits of the case as thus brought before us. The question that is to be determined, as I understand it, is simply whether a member is a good citizen, an honest man with character and all the attributes which command confidence and respect. These sterling qualities of citizenship should, I think, be demanded of all who aspire to the great honor which a seat in this body confers. What may be his private belief in religious matters should have no weight in making up public opinion regarding him.
The same section of the Constitution that provides for the right of petition to Congress also prohibits Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise of the same. We should not regard a Huxley disqualified for a seat in the United States Senate because of his attitude toward questions of religion. However much we might regret that attitude, we should still acknowledge his great qualities of mind and heart and willingly accord to him that profound respect which devotion to truth exacts. So with the numberless shades of religious opinions which exist among mankind. Were we to take note in politics of religious beliefs, we should, in my opinion, retrace our steps to the period when religious differences gave rise to the most cruel of all the wars which have devastated the earth, and which revealed the spirit of Christianity in efforts to exterminate certain forms of religious belief.
Our noble system of government is built upon a foundation which is the more secure because it takes no account of religious opinion. Freedom of conscience is one of the surest guarantees of the Republic, and I am sure no action can be taken which will abridge in the slightest degree that right. In my opinion, eligibility to a seat in either house of Congress in no way depends on religious belief, and objections on that score seem to me to be barred both by the spirit and letter of the Constitution. In case of opposition to the seating of a member of either house, it seems to me that the governing consideration should be as I have stated—whether or not a man is a good citizen, of unimpeachable character, honest and conscientious in the performance of his duty as an American citizen, and with no obligation to church or other organization that can interfere or conflict with his fealty to the Constitution and laws of our country.
I have offered these thoughts of the subject at this time that my position may be understood by the good women of California, for whom I have the most profound respect, and whom I have also the honor in part to represent in this honorable body.
Immediately following these remarks by Senator Perkins, Senator Patterson, of Colorado, presented a petition “from several thousand of the women of Colorado expressive of their wishes with reference to the exclusion of Hon. Reed Smoot from the Senate of the United States,” and stated that he, too, had been requested to say something in connection with the petition. He said that all he desired to say was “that there are grave constitutional questions connected with the disposition of the matter involved in the proceedings against Mr. Smoot, and, as far as I am concerned, I intend, by any vote I shall give, to be governed by the constitutional rights of the individual against whom the proceedings are being had.” This, of course, is not exactly the attitude that is desired on the part of senators by those who are petitioning and campaigning for Smoot’s exclusion. One or two other senators have also indicated by expressions in the Senate that they are not altogether in agreement with the attitude assumed in this campaign for the exclusion of Smoot.
“CHRISTIAN NATION.”
The “Christian-nation” idea which he injected in, and made a part of, a decision of the Supreme Court some years ago, thereby giving to the decision a fame which it will probably long enjoy, and a character which, however pleasing it may be to those citizens of theocratical inclinations, makes it repugnant to a most vital principle of the Republic and of modern civilization—the separation of church and state, theology and politics—is evidently a hobby of Justice Brewer of the United States Supreme Court and the Presbyterian Church. Not only has he exploited the idea in the decision mentioned, and quite recently in a book, but he reiterates it publicly at every opportunity. A recent instance of this has been in an address in Washington before the Young Men’s Club of the First Congregational Church, where he declared before a senator, members of Congress, and a high government official:
This is a Christian nation. In the cabin of the Mayflower was signed the compact that recognized God as the Ruler of nations. Every alien in becoming naturalized appeals in his oath to God. Throughout the life of the nation has ever run the idea of Christianity. In the darkness of Valley Forge the father of his country was found in prayer. At Franklin’s suggestion the convention which met to form a constitution commenced with prayer. In the dark hours of Lincoln’s death there came the inspiration, “God reigns and the Republic still lives.”
Of course it is all right for Judge Brewer to be a churchman on such occasions as the above, but he has no business to be a churchman when he writes decisions in the United States Supreme Court.
Business Girls’ Temperance Pledge
Only the total abstainers of Trenton, N. J., may find wives among the members of the Business Girls’ Association, for each has signed the following pledge: “I hereby promise not to associate with or marry any man who is not a total abstainer from the use of all intoxicating liquors, including wine, beer, and cider, and I promise to abstain from the same myself, and I will not marry a man to save him.” The society is composed of working girls and was organized by some members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. It has about one hundred members,—Selected.
Alcohol Consumption and Tuberculosis
The relation of the use of alcohol to disease is shown by the following statistical item, taken from the Dominion Presbyterian: “A French writer publishes facts showing that, in France, the provinces where most alcohol is drunk, have the largest number of deaths from tuberculosis. ‘Thus, a consumption of 12.5 litres of alcohol per person corresponds with a mortality of 3.3 per 1,000 inhabitants; when the consumption of alcohol becomes 35.4 litres per person, the death-rate from tuberculosis rises to 10.3 per 1,000 inhabitants.’”
Prohibition in Grayson County
Thirty-seven years ago, says the editor of the California Voice, all the saloons were voted out of the county of Grayson, Va. The next year there was but one man in jail. Subsequently the jail was used as a storehouse for grain, and finally was torn down and a Baptist church was built on the old foundation. Now there are plenty of people twenty-five years old in that county who never saw a saloon, and the population of the county is about doubled. It is such facts as these that speak most emphatically for out-and-out prohibition.
The Cost of the Liquor Traffic
The liquor traffic costs more each year than our whole civil service, our army, navy, and Congress, the river, harbor, and pension bills, all we pay for local government, all national, state, and county debts, and all the schools in the country. In fact, this government pays more for liquor than for every function of every kind of government.—New York Tribune.
The Opium Habit
It is said that there are 600,000 opium consumers in the United States—men and women bound mind, body, and soul to this terrible habit. You can cure a hundred drunkards easier than you can cure one opium-eater. Their cry in the last hour of life is not for God, not for prayer, not for the Bible, but for opium.—Talmage.
NEW THINGS.
By H. A. St. John
The new covenant holds within its embrace a number of new things of inestimable value, each and all of which may be obtained by every soul that will obediently accept them on the conditions of the covenant.
Let us enumerate and consider some of these new things; and may the Spirit of God impress our minds with their great value, that we may seek them with all our hearts, in the Lord's appointed way.
1. A New Spirit.—“A new spirit will I put within you.” Eze. 36 : 26. So much do we all need this new spirit, the Spirit of God, that we can not be the children of God without it. When it abides in us, it will bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. This new spirit will cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and will fill us with a sweet conformity to all the will of God. Then we will be able to say truthfully, Lord, not my will, but Thine, be done in me, and by me, in all things. This new spirit will not revile again when reviled, but will ever incline to do good for evil, and to do good unto all men, according to the measure of opportunity. O, the blessedness of that soul in whom is revealed the gift of the new spirit. Reader, are you in possession of this precious gift of the new covenant? If so, ever cherish it tenderly, never grieve it away; for it is your ever-present teacher, comforter, and guide.
2. A New Heart.—“A new heart also will I give you.” Eze. 36 : 26. This new heart will be the old heart, or mind, or affections, renewed by the new spirit; and when thus cleansed from all sin, it becomes a suitable place for the new spirit to write the law of God. Not until this new heart takes the place of the old heart, or carnal mind, can a person become subject to the law of God. With this new mind, which is the mind that was in Christ, the soul will delight in loving obedience to the will of God. “Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Rom. 12 : 2.
With a new spirit, and a new heart, the individual becomes indeed “a new creature in Christ Jesus,” ever walking in newness of life. These new things, a new spirit and new heart, are blessings of the new covenant for us now, in this mortal, probationary state. Dear reader, is your life made all radiant in the Lord by the possession of these new gifts of the new covenant? If not, seek and obtain, while they are so freely proffered. If so, then may you ever abound more and more in all their gracious manifestations.
But there is another new thing necessary to the completion of the personal salvation of the individual, and that is,—
3. A New Body.—While we praise God for the unspeakable gifts of a new spirit and a new heart, together with all the blessedness their possession brings to us here and now, we will still “groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8 : 23); waiting for the glory that is to be revealed in us, at the coming of the Lord. At that day there will be the full manifestation of the sons of God. Jesus is able to save every soul unto the uttermost, and when the immortal body—the glorified body, the body fashioned like unto the glorious body of Christ—is received, salvation to the individual will be complete, unto the uttermost, fully rounded out. And this gift of a new body is9included in the new things so freely proffered to us in the new covenant. When the new body is received, none of its possessors will ever again say, “I am sick.” No more sickness, sorrow, pain, nor death.
How blessed, yea, how cheering, is the thought that God's new things so freely offered us through Christ embraces a new body. As weakness and suffering, consequent upon disease, infirmities, or age, press upon us, how we look forward longingly for the last instalment of the glorious salvation, the redemption of our bodies, when the precious Jesus comes. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly, that we may go home to dwell with Thee evermore, and evermore be like Thee.
H. A. ST. JOHN.
OUR GREAT TREASURE-HOUSE
By Ellen G. White
BY MRS. E. G. WHITE.
II. WHAT SAITH THE SCRIPTURES?
When a question was brought to Christ, His answer was, “Have ye not read?” “What saith the Scriptures?” Christ could have answered every perplexing question brought to Him, but He did not do this. He directed His questioners to the great storehouse of knowledge. He knew that He could not always be with them in human form, and He desired to teach them to make the Word their dependence. “Search the Scriptures,” He said. He referred them to His own inspired Word, that when tempted by the enemy, they might meet him as He had done, saying, “It is written.” Thus the enemy could be repulsed; for he has no power over the one who relies on the testimony of God’s Word.
Of the Word of God, the psalmist writes, “The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple.” It is a light shining in a dark place. As we search its pages, light enters the heart, illuminating the mind. By this light we see what we ought to be.
Our Counsel and Guide.
We see in the Word, warnings and promises, with God behind them all. We are invited to search this Word for aid when brought into difficult places. If we do not consult the Guide-book at every step, inquiring, Is this the way of the Lord? our words and acts will be tainted by selfishness. We shall forget God, and walk in paths that He has not chosen for us.
God’s Word is full of precious promises and helpful counsel. It is infallible; for God can not err. It has help for every circumstance and condition of life, and God looks on with sadness when His children turn from it to human aid.
He who through the Scriptures holds communion with God will be ennobled and sanctified. As he reads the inspired record of the Saviour’s love, his heart will melt in tenderness and contrition. He will be filled with a desire to be like his Master, to live a life of loving service.
Great light shone forth from the patriarchs and prophets. Glorious things were spoken of Zion, the city of God. Thus the Lord designs that the light shall shine forth through His followers to-day. If the saints of the Old Testament bore such a bright testimony of loyalty, should we not to-day, upon whom is shining the accumulated light of centuries, arise and shine? The glory of the prophecies shed their light on our pathway. Type has met antitype in the death of God’s Son. Christ has risen from the dead, proclaiming over the rent sepulcher, “I am the resurrection and the life.” He has sent His Spirit into our world to bring all things to our remembrance. By a miracle of His power He has preserved His written Word through the ages. Shall we not, then, make this Word our constant study, learning from it God’s purpose for us.
Why “More Noble.”
The Bereans were commended as being more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily. They did not search the Bible from curiosity, but that they might learn in regard to Christ. Daily, they compared scripture with scripture; and as they searched, heavenly intelligences were beside them, enlightening their minds and impressing their hearts.
We are to open the Word of God with reverence, and with a sincere desire to know the will of God concerning us. Then the heavenly angels will direct our search. God speaks to us in His Word. We are in the audience-chamber of the Most High, in the very presence of God. Christ enters the heart. The Holy Spirit takes of the things of God, and shows them to us. We see more clearly the greatness of God’s love and the fullness of His salvation. We appreciate more fully His gracious design to make us partakers in the heavenly family. We are drawn into full sympathy with the plans of God. His secret is with us, and He shows us His covenant.
The life of Christ, that gives life to the world, is in His word. It was by His word that Jesus healed disease and cast out demons; by His word He stilled the sea and raised the dead; and the people bore witness that His word was with power. He spoke the word of God, as He had spoken through all the prophets and teachers of the Old Testament. The whole Bible is a manifestation of Christ, and the Saviour desires to fix the faith of His followers on the Word. When His visible presence should be withdrawn, the Word must be their source of power. Like their Master, they were to live by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
The Word Our Food.
As our physical life is sustained by food, so our spiritual life is sustained by the word of God. As we must eat for ourselves in order to obtain nourishment, so we must receive the word for ourselves. We are not to obtain it merely through the medium of another’s mind. We should carefully study the Bible, asking God for the aid of the Holy Spirit, that we may understand His Word. We should take one verse, and concentrate the mind on the task of ascertaining the thought that God has in that verse for us. We should dwell upon the thought until it becomes our own, and we know “what saith the Lord.”
In the Bible we have in clear lines the revelation of God’s character, of His dealings with men, and the great work of redemption. Here is open before us the history of patriarchs and prophets, and other holy men of old. They were men “subject to like passions as we are.”
We see how they struggled through discouragements like our own, how they fell under temptation as we have done, and yet took heart again and conquered through the grace of God; and, beholding, we are encouraged in our striving after righteousness. As we read of the precious experiences granted them, of the light and love and blessing it was theirs to enjoy, and of the work they wrought through the grace given them, the Spirit that inspired them kindles a flame of holy emulation in our hearts, and a desire to be like them in character,—like them, to walk with God.
