“Without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” “God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”
Two things are prominently set forth in these texts, namely, our obligation to exercise faith, and the fact that God has placed within the reach of every one the possibility of faith; for none can say it is impossible to have faith. The only reason why he does not recognize the presence of the gift is that he does not exercise it.
Faith is not sight; it is belief based on authority, when as yet nothing is seen. “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” It is the groundwork of hope. It takes hold of the promises of God, and makes them real. It unlocks the mystery of godliness, and brings the blessed realization of oneness with the Father. It surmounts difficulties, and shouts the victory even when no victory is in sight. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
Our faith should grow. We should pray, as did one of old, “Lord, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” We should learn lessons of faith and trust in every opening providence around us. In the earthly ministry of Jesus, every opportunity was improved to strengthen the faith of every trembling soul. Every act of mercy, every miracle of healing, was calculated to help the people to believe. “That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, . . .” saith He to the sick of the palsy, “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.” And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled [feared], and glorified God, which had given such power unto men. “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.”
As we study the miracles of Christ, especially those of healing, we see the people were healed according to their faith. The only thing the sick could do was to place their wills on the side of Christ in the exercise of faith. Faith is the gift of God, and is ours to exercise. If we do not exercise faith, we fail to reap the benefit to be derived from it.
In the last text cited, the prime object in believing is said to be that we might have life through His name. Life through His name comprehends every act of our lives. Paul writes: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”
It requires faith to “deny” one’s self “daily” (Luke 9:23), and see, instead of his own righteousness (filthy rags), the perfect robe of righteousness woven for him by the Son of God. It requires faith for one to look into that photograph of his natural heart given in Jer. 17:9, and then see, instead of the deceit and desperate wickedness, a pure, spotless, and sinless Jesus enthroned, the hope of glory.
Life is active. A life of faith is a life of activity. “Faith works by love, and purifies the heart.” We can not keep still if we exercise faith. The experiences of ancient Israel furnish forcible illustrations of this. When they came to the Red Sea, they were to “go forward.” When they came to the Jordan, they were to go forward. When they came to the walled city of Jericho, they were to march around it, according to the command of the Lord. There was work in it all, but it was the work of faith.
Reader, have you faith? Have you in your experience come up to what seemed insurmountable barriers in your pathway, such as a Red Sea or an overflowing Jordan? Have you come in contact with a Jericho, with its impregnable walls?3Have you marched around it for seven days, never uttering a word, and on the seventh day encompassed it seven times, and then shouted the victory when as yet there was no sign of the walls falling? Like Gideon’s band of three hundred, have you held the lighted lamp in one hand, and the trumpet in the other, and shouted the victory, even tho Midian’s host were many times larger?
The case of Elisha and his servant at Dothan, surrounded by the Syrians, is worthy of consideration in connection with this subject of faith. The servant was in anxiety because of imminent danger; but the man of God felt different. His words of consolation were: “Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
Just so our faith should take hold of the promises of God. He has never left His children to themselves. His Word is, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Not only should our faith take hold of God when we come up to a Red Sea or a turbulent Jordan or a Jericho, but in the many every-day incidents that so easily ruffle us. That hasty word spoken in the home was the result of not exercising faith in a Jesus who was present to keep you from it, had you only let Him.
The exercise of faith will lead the parent to do as did Job, when his three “sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; . . . and it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.”
Job virtually took the place of his children, and claimed the promise in their behalf. “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us; and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death.” Faith says, Without Him I can do nothing, but with Christ I can do all things. L. A. HOOPES.
THANKSGIVING
By C. M. Snow
Sing it, ye tribes of the teeming earth,
And ye winds that are wandering free,
A carol of praise to the Ancient of Days
For the fruit of the vine and tree.
Echo it, hills, and ye romping rills
That babble your shores along,
Your praises sing to the risen King
In our glad Thanksgiving song.
From dew to dew, the long day through,
We have toiled on the sun-swept plain;
With horny hand we have tilled the land,
Or scattered the golden grain.
Through drought or blight or frosty night
Or midnight prowler’s raid,
We have trusted Thee implicitly,
With never a trust betrayed.
And now, as the harvest-time is here,
And the bite of the frost is keen,
And dawns the wold its garb of gold
Or woods their autumn sheen,
A hymn of praise to Thee we raise
For the flocks upon the plain,
For the fruit-filled tree and the granary
With its bins of golden grain.
Tho wild and raw the winds may blow
Through the dark and dreadsome night,
We’ll pile the fire with fagots higher,
And bask in its blithesome light.
The snow may blind, and the frost may bind
And silence the singing stream,
But our praise to Thee flows cheerily
In the bright hearth’s gladsome gleam.
Our cups run o’er with Thy bounteous store,
Our wants are full supplied,
And we bow in prayer for Thy further care
In the lowering eventide.
’Mid all the woe this world bestows,
In trains of sorrowing ills,
From day to day along life’s way
Thy love our spirit thrills.
From Sinai and Nazareth,
From Tyre and Galilee,
Thy precepts teach, in living speech,
Thy constant care for me.
The weakest, frailest child of earth
Such promises may claim,
For heaven’s key is Calvary
And our Redeemer’s name.
Thanksgiving is our soul’s response
For all our God has wrought.
To you and me salvation’s free—
Our labors merit naught.
Our fullest praise through endless days
To Thy great name belongs;
We soon shall sing to earth’s true King
More glad Thanksgiving songs.
C. M. Snow.
THE DECALOGUE.
By J. W. Watt
The Second Commandment, Concluded.
The Meaning of His Name.
What does God’s name signify to us? Is it simply a title by which our minds grasp the idea of a Supreme Being, or does it mean more than this to us, His children? Evidently God designed that His name should bring to our minds His true character. The name of many things in this world indicates the character of the thing named. Thus the name of a man who is a good Christian becomes synonymous with uprightness, integrity, honesty. The same is true of bad men. So God would have us ever remember His character when we hear His name. Jehovah has proclaimed His name in His Word, so that we may make no mistake in this matter:—
“And the Lord [Jehovah] descended in the cloud, . . . and proclaimed the name of the Jehovah. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” Ex. 34 : 5-7.
Mercy.
The first thing the Lord speaks of in declaring His name is mercy. He is merciful, that is, He is full of mercy. What is mercy?—It is a(724)disposition to treat an offender better than he deserves. Has God treated us better than we deserve to be treated?—O, yes; for we have all sinned against Him many times; yet He is always willing, yes, anxious, to receive us back again into His favor just as soon as we turn to Him by repentance! We deserve death, because “the wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6 : 23. But God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should turn unto Him and live.
God says we “shall not take His name in vain.” As children of God we take upon ourselves His name. It is natural that the son should be like the father. Consider the likeness of Christ to His Father. He was like His Father both in personal appearance and in character. What Jesus was and is, God designs all His children to be, and by grace, through the Gospel, they all will become. “We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” 1 John 3 : 2. Let us not bear His name in vain. But if my heavenly Father is merciful, and I am unmerciful, I have taken upon me His name in vain; for it would be a vain thing for me to hope to live eternally with a merciful God when I myself was the opposite in character. The child of God must bear the character of God. I, having offended God, have been treated better than I deserve to be treated; therefore, He would now have me treat my fellow-men as He has treated me, thus representing to them the character of my Father in heaven.
Grace.
What is the difference between mercy and grace?—Mercy is a disposition to treat an offender better than he deserves, while grace is the actual bestowal of gifts and blessings upon those not worthy to receive them. Has God bestowed upon us gifts and blessings that we are unworthy to receive?—Yes; He has bestowed upon a guilty world the best Gift of heaven, His own dear Son. No one in this world is worthy to receive such a gift; yet God has willingly and freely bestowed it upon us, together with many other gifts which we enjoy from His hand. Now, so far as we are able to do so, God would have us bestow favors upon our fellow-men, that we may thus correctly represent the character of our Heavenly Father. If we fail to do this, we have taken His name in vain.
Long-suffering.
There must be suffering before there can be long-suffering. Has God been suffering?—Yes, since sin first appeared in Lucifer before he was cast out of heaven. Why does God suffer?—Because of sin. Why does sin cause God to suffer?—Because sin is so contrary to His nature—His character—that He can not harmonize with it in any of its forms; therefore, He suffers because compelled for a time to come in contact with it. Does it cause any suffering to a kind-hearted Christian father to see one of His children going in the way of death?—Certainly it does, and only a father who has passed through such an experience knows what suffering it will cause. How much suffering, then, has reached the heart of our heavenly Father as He has seen so many of His creatures departing from Him, and going in the way of death! Yes, dear reader, every sin that we have committed has reached the heart of God, and has caused pain. But now that we have become His children, what does He expect of us on this point?—Ah, that we gain such an experience in His love that when we come in contact with sin in any form, it will cause us to suffer. That which grieves our Father will grieve us; our love for Him will be so great that whatsoever hurts Him, will hurt us. If we have not yet had such an experience, then grace must do more for us than it has ever done yet, or we shall find that we are bearing His name in vain. Yet, suffering long, His mercy endures.
Goodness.
Whatever good there is in this universe, flows from God; for He is the source of all goodness. Jesus “went about doing good;” for “God was with Him.” Acts 10 : 38. When the young man said, “Good Master,” Jesus said, “There is none good but one, that is, God.” Matt. 19 : 16, 17. But we must have such a union with God that His goodness will flow into us by His Spirit, and from us to the world. Then, like Jesus, we shall go about doing good; for God will be with us, as He was with Jesus. Let us not be satisfied with anything short of this. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”
Truth.
Truth is the opposite of falsehood; anything is false that will in any way deceive. Truth may be said to be a statement of unchangeable facts; such are the life and character of God. His life is to all the universe a living representation of facts. There is no deception about Him; so that when He speaks, we know the thing is just that way. He would have His children like Him in all their words and actions; then the world would see living representations of truth, and everything Christians did would be as open as the day.
Forgiveness.
We are certainly glad to know that God is filled with a spirit to forgive those who have wronged Him. Many are the lessons on this point recorded in the Bible, and we rejoice to know that every sin is forgiven when we turn to God with all the heart; this is a part of the name of God, a part of His character. But let us remember that as God forgives us, so we must forgive all who in any way wrong us; and if we do not, we do not correctly represent God to the world, and are bearing or taking His name in vain.
Jesus an Example.
“I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world.” “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17 : 6, 26. Christ’s life was a living representation of what it means to keep the third commandment, and all the law. He not only lived the Father’s name, but all His teaching made known that name to the world He came to save.
“The Keeping Power in His Name.”
Jesus prayed: “Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name.” John 17 : 11, 12. How important the name of the Lord, when Jesus used it to keep His followers from the power of Satan while He was with them; then, as He is about to leave them, listen to that earnest prayer which ascends from His lips to the Father, that His disciples may still be kept through that name, the character of God. “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” Prov. 18 : 10. As the name of the Lord signifies His character, there are not devils enough in the whole universe to destroy the man who abides in the name—character—of the Lord. The 144,000 who will finally stand on the sea of glass have “His Father’s name written in their foreheads.” Rev. 14 : 1.
Well might David say, “Thy commandment is exceeding broad.” How little of the real depth of meaning in the commandments of God we have grasped! May the Lord open our eyes, that we may see wondrous things out of His law. J. W. WATT.
THANKSGIVING DAYS.
By X
The first record we have of national thanksgiving days is among the Hebrews. The Feast of Tabernacles, beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, was the great thanksgiving feast of Israel. Instructions concerning it are found in Lev. 23:34-44; Num. 29:12-39, and Deut. 16:13-16.
It was a seven-day thanksgiving feast. So is its nature set forth: “Thou shalt keep the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in from thy threshing-floor and from thy winepress; and thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man servant, and thy maid servant, and the Levite, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.” See Deut. 16:13-16; 1 Kings 8:2; Neh. 8:17; John 7:2, 37. The feast commemorated the wanderings in the wilderness; it was a season of thanksgiving to God for the fruits of earth; and it was typical of the great “harvest home” of God, when the weary pilgrims to Zion will wander no more, and the ingathering of God will have taken place. See Zech. 14:16-19.
On every seventh year the law was read at this feast. This national feast was really the feast of the church; for the nation was the church.
The harvest feast, held variously in various lands, with more or less heathenish custom connected with it, is no doubt the perversion of true thanksgiving services of grateful acknowledgment to God for the bounties of earth.
The first public Thanksgiving day of New England was held in the autumn of 1621. “Governor Braddock,” we are told, “sent out four men to gather game, so that the whole colony might ‘rejoice together,’ after they had garnered the fruits of their labor.” One queries whether they could not have rejoiced just as well without flesh food as with. The following year (1622) an old chronicle informs us they “solemnized a day of thanksgiving unto the Lord;” and another chronicler says that the Indian Massasoit and his court were invited to take part in the rejoicings, and that they remained three days feasting on venison. The services of those days would hardly be tolerated now in these times of nervous haste and waning devotion. A little more than two centuries ago two men went to Boston and attended church services, where one minister made a prayer at the beginning “of full two hours in length, after which an old minister delivered a sermon an hour long, and after that a prayer was made and some verses sung out of the Psalms. In the afternoon three or four hours were consumed with nothing except prayers, three ministers relieving each other alternately; when one was tired the other went up into the pulpit.” And here is a record of a thanksgiving day service of Dec. 22, 1630:—
Harvest of Canaan.
“Beginning some half an hour before nine, and continued until after twelve o’clock, ye day being very cold—beginning with a short prayer, then a psalm sung, then more large in prayer, after that another psalm and the Word taught, after that prayer and then a psalm.”
The first public thanksgiving, appointed by authority, in America, was proclaimed in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631. February 22 of that year had been appointed as a fast in consequence of a scarcity of provisions, but before the day came, a ship laden with provisions came, and the fast day was changed to a day of thanksgiving.
In February, 1644, a public thanksgiving day was appointed in New Netherlands by Governor Kieft, on account of a victory over the Indians, and again the next year, when peace was concluded. The custom, local and general, was in vogue in the several colonies, and the Continental Congress adopted it. The following days were appointed during the war of the revolution: Thursday, July 20, 1775; Friday, May 17, and Dec. 11, 1776; Wednesday, April 22, 1778; Thursday, May 6, 1779; Wednesday, April 6, 1780; Thursday, May 3, 1781; Thursday, April 25, 1782. These were made by recommendation of the Continental Congress to the several colonies. Washington appointed Dec. 18, 1777, a day of general thanksgiving by the continental army; again at Valley Forge, May 7, 1778. As President, Washington appointed Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, as a day of general thanksgiving throughout the United States; also Thursday, Feb. 19, 1795.
The Protestant Episcopal Church, in its Book of Common Prayer, revised 1789, directs the first Thursday of November (unless another be appointed by the civil authorities) “to be observed as a day of thanksgiving to almighty God for the fruits of the earth,” etc. The custom in this country may be said to have originated in New England, gradually spreading to other parts.
It is only recently that Thanksgiving day has become a national holiday, with regular yearly appointment by the President and governors of the States on the last Thursday in November. As late as 1863 it was appointed for August 6.
Such a day, it will be evident to all, can not be arbitrarily appointed by civil authority, because civil authority can not make men thankful to God. At the most, a magistrate can only recommend it; the people should be free to elect as to its observance; for true thanksgiving must be willing. And it not infrequently is the case that a man could show himself to be more thankful by working than by using the day as directed by civil law. To be truly thankful there must be true appreciation of God’s goodness, and in the absence of this, civil authority can neither direct nor compel. In its presence, who is a better director than God, who inspires the gratitude? X.
“BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD.”
By George A. Snyder
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
When we consider Jesus as the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” and try to comprehend the import of the sacrifice which from the very beginning involved the giving up of the bliss and joy of heaven for the agony of Gethsemane, and the exchange of a crown of glory for a crown of thorns, we are ready to exclaim, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The ultimate object of this wonderful manifestation of divine love was to take “away the sin of the world.” “Sin,” says the beloved disciple, “is the transgression of the law.” So the “Lamb of God” was provided for the express purpose of removing from the world all of the transgression of God’s law, which has brought so much sorrow in its train.
Through the prophet Isaiah, God has told us that He did not create the earth in vain, but that He formed it to be inhabited. Isa. 45:18. From Rev. 4:11 we learn further that all things were created for God’s pleasure. It is self-evident that God could not derive any pleasure from having the earth inhabited by transgressors of His law, and so He provided a means whereby all transgression will be forever removed from the earth. It is a blessed thought to know that the earth will finally emerge from the shadow of sin, and that God’s purpose in creating it will be fully realized. The Great Shepherd of the heavens left all the shining flock of unfallen worlds on high, to seek after this wanderer from the fold, and in the morning He will bring back, in the arms of His love, the one lost sheep of the universe, and restore it, washed from every stain of sin, to the fold of eternal blessedness. Whether you and I shall join in the rejoicing over the sheep that was lost and is found, will depend on how we “behold the Lamb of God.”
It is the work of the adversary “to pervert the right ways of the Lord” (Acts 13:10); and so, instead of openly opposing the “Lamb of God,” he seeks to turn the cross, on which the sacrifice was made, upside down, to serve his own purpose. Calvary stands as a pledge of Christ’s power to take away sin, which “is the transgression of the law.” The enemy tries to make it appear that Jesus died to abolish the law, and release man from all obligation to obey its requirements. In short, he seeks to use the cross as a gravestone on which to write the epitaph of a dead and buried law. But, O, he can never obliterate the motto traced on the cross with the precious blood of the Lamb: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled [filled full] in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin” not the law, until you are changed into His image, having the law written, “not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law.”
When the requisite number of individuals shall have so fully yielded to God that He can empty them of their transgressions of His law, and fill them full of joyful obedience to its5righteous requirements, then God will fulfil His eternal purpose by filling the earth full of such people.
Those who will not part with their sins, but continue to transgress God’s law, will be destroyed from off the earth; for the Lamb of God will remove all sin from this earth, even if He has to remove the sinner with the sin. But His heart is yearning to take away the sin, and save the sinner from his sins both here and hereafter. GEORGE A. SNYDER.
Los Angeles, Cal.
“LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN.”
By Cyrus Simmons
“In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren.” Heb. 2:17. The parallel is sempiternal: it begins at birth; it continues through time and eternity.
Jesus was born, or “made of a woman.” Gal. 4:4; Matt. 1:20, 24. Our maternity is the same.
He was born of the Holy Ghost. Luke 1:35. Spiritual birth is imperatively enjoined upon all. “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can not enter into the kingdom of God.” John 3:5. It is then we receive “the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Rom. 8:15.
At birth Christ was a helpless babe. Luke 2:7. New creatures in Christ Jesus, “as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye [they] may grow thereby; if so be ye [they] have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” 1 Peter 2:2, 3.
From a babe Jesus became a child. Luke 2:40. The Lord addressed His apostles as “children.” John 2:5.
From childhood Jesus went on growing. “And the Child grew, and waxed strong in Spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.” Luke 2:40. The gifts of the Spirit are placed in the church “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; that we henceforth be no more children.” Eph. 4:12-14.
Jesus came to do the will of God: “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me), to do Thy will, O God.” Heb. 10:7. None are exempt from doing likewise. “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 7:21.
In perfect obedience Jesus came to die. “Being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,” “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Acts 2:23; Phil. 2:8. With the same submission to the will of God, it should be the Christian’s purpose to die. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” Matt. 16:24. Note the likeness attending the circumstances of the death of Christ and of His followers. Jesus bore His cross. John 19:17. We must do likewise. “Let him . . . take up his cross.”
By reading the same text with another emphasis, we find that Jesus bore His cross. To His followers He speaks, “Let him . . . take up his cross.” Why take up the cross without intending to be crucified? But crucifixion is the denial of self. Jesus “made Himself of no reputation,” or, as the Revised Version and Rotherham render it, “emptied Himself,” and “took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” Phil. 2:7. God’s emptying of self was so complete that He became a man. It preceded His death. Before we are bidden to take up our cross, we are told to first deny self. “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross.”
This likeness “in all things” begins here and is continued in the hereafter. It belongs to the farthest reaches of the soul. “For if we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death, we shall be also by the likeness of His resurrection.” Rom. 6:5, R.V. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” 1 John 3:2.
He was made like unto His brethren, that He might make His brethren like unto Him. We could not go up to Him, but He came down in our likeness to be with us, that He might bring us up in His likeness to be with Him. Thus as man He reveals Himself to man. By raising him from the human to the divine, He makes him fit for His own companionship, and is enabled as God to reveal Himself to the sons of God. “We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”
10. The new earth will be the old earth purified; for “He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” Rev. 21:5.
WELLINGTON FROST.
Warner Lake, Oregon.
BENEFIT OF BEREAVEMENT.
By Phillips Brooks
TAKE the man whose life has known bereavement, who has passed some time through those days and nights which I may not try to describe to you, but which come up to so many of you as I say the old word, “death”—days and nights when he watched the slow untwisting of some silver cord on which his very life was hung, or suddenly felt the golden bowl dashed down and broken of which his very life had drank. The first shock became dulled. The first agony grew calm. The lips subsided into serenity. But was there not something in him that made him greater and purer and richer than of old; something that let any one see, who watched the change, that it was “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”? A whole new quality, that rich quality which the Bible calls by its large word “patience,” the power of his trial, was in his new serenity until he died.—Phillips Brooks.
Carry a Heavy Load Lightly
WHEN your load is heavy, do not add despondency to it, but rather carry it with a light heart.—Lookout.
Following the Sun
By Leighton
THAT flower that follows the sun does so even on cloudy days.—Leighton.
