A minister went hurrying out of the church to catch the train. Upon arrival at the gate he found he had just three minutes. A man who had heard him speak rushed up and said, "I am very anxious about my soul." The minister replied, "I have only two minutes to catch my train. It is the last one tonight. I re­quest you to read Isaiah 53: 6. Go in at the first all, and come out at the last all."  The man went home, thinking over that strange instruction. He got out his Bible and read, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." The anxious sinner, after reading the passage, said, "I am included in that first 'all'"; after reflection he suddenly recalled that he was also included in the last "all."  He immediately fell upon his knees and accepted pardon and cleansing. 

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Divine Absolution

      A Spanish woman was once condemned to death for the murder of her child. The priest heard her confessions, and absolved her, but at the end of it all her remorse and despair were pitiful to see.  The priest arranged for a second confession, lest there should be any sins she had forgotten, and again he gave her absolution; but her agony and remorse were just the same. "Is there nothing more you can do for me?" she cried; "oh, how dare I meet God with my sins!" Moved by compassion, the priest said: "Well, there is one thing more; it is written in the Bible, 'the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin.'" "Is that true?"she cried, "how do you know it is?" "It is true," replied the priest, "for the Word of God says so, and that must be true." In a moment the woman's face was changed completely. "Oh," she cried,  "why didn't you tell me that before?" Her tears of anguish became tears of joy. Next day she went to the execution with perfect composure; while her father-confessor was so aston­ished at the effect of that single verse, that he began study­ing the doctrines of grace, and ultimately joined the Spanish Reformers.             

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The Eagle's Eye

        The Eagle's Eye - "Why cannot God be seen by mortal eye?" asked the Emperor Trajan. "You say," said he to Rabbi Joshua, "that your God is every­where. I should like to see him."  "He is indeed every­where," said the rabbi; "but no mortal eye can behold his glory." The emperor insisted. "Well," said Joshua, "suppose we go first and look at one of his ambassadors," and so saying he bade the emperor look at the dazzling sun. "Art thou unable then to look at one of his creatures? How, therefore, couldst thou hope to look upon the Creator Himself and live?"

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Above Niagara

       Above  Niagara - Your peace, sinner, is that terribly prophetic calm which the traveler occasionally perceives upon the higher Alps. Everything is still. The birds suspend their notes, fly low, and cower down with fear.  The hum of bees among the flowers is hushed. A horrible stillness rules the hour, as if death had silenced all things by stretching over them his awful scepter. Perceive ye not what is surely at hand? The tempest is preparing; the lightning will soon cast abroad its flames of fire. Earth will rock with thunder-blasts; granite peaks will be dis­solved; all nature will tremble beneath the fury of the storm. Yours is that solemn calm today, sinner. Rejoice not in it, for the hurricane of wrath is coming, the whirlwind and the tribulation that shall sweep you away and utterly destroy you. -- C. H. SPURGEON.

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Courage

       John Fletcher was in his pulpit one Sunday night. The opening service was begun, when his sermon and his text swept out of his mind, like a slip of paper through the window. He tried to recall the sermon; he tried to recall the text, but in vein. Song after song, prayer after prayer followed, pushing him to the moment when he would have to preach, text or no text. The darkness grew denser -- until he had to rise. Just then the scene of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace rose up before him and the whole horizon was lit up with the blaze of thought. He began to preach, and the Spirit gave him liberty. The crowded assembly was baptized from on high. He knew nothing of it, but in that church was a little woman who took her life in her hand that night to serve God. Her husband hated Fletcher and swore he would bake her in his bread-oven if she ever went to his church again. God had given the little woman a chance to answer her own prayer--but it is to be answered in a burning oven, and she is willing to pay the price. She has braved all this and has come to church tonight. This is what that lost sermon meant. But she had the One she needed. When she reached her home the oven was red and her husband stood in the door brandishing his bread-knife. Nothing daunted she walked up the steps, and he fell on his knees crying: "Oh, wife, pray for me! Pray for me!" We men drop on our knees before that kind of religion. The other sort never troubles us. Sanctified heroism saved her husband--the least cowardice would have doomed him.

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               A Precious Body                           

         A professor of surgery was taking students round the beds of an incurable hospital, when he came to a couch on which a man lay who was full of wounds. Referring to some last and despairing operation that was to be performed on that living corpse, the professor said to his students, "Fiat experimentum in corpore vili! ""Too true, gentlemen," said the dying man, "too true. But" (in a Latin that startled the students) "pro hoc corpore vili, Jesus Christus mortuus est." (Too true, gentlemen, but Jesus Christ died for this worthless body of mine.) The dying outcast was a graduate of the University of Cambridge.

                                                         --ALEXANDER WHYTE        

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