BV 379? THE WAY TO HEAVEN BY EVANGELIST W. W. SMITH REV. W. W. SMITH 1890 THE WAY TO HEAVEN r^S By EVANGELIST W.'W. SMITH Copyright i9or REV. W. W. SMITH Roanoke, Va. [LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received APK 19 1907 I a topyrtirht Entry A%k. h S. '4 il- eum A XXe> "God is Love." — I John iv, 8. Take the word love away from the Bible, and you take away its divine light. Sweep the essence of this word from the human race, and you would des- troy happiness as much as you would destroy light if you w T ere to hurl the sun from its heights sublime and strike its glories from the throne of time. The fountain of this word is in the heart of the great God, from which there is a river of love flowing out, washing the sin-stained souls of millions, making them whiter than snow. If we were to read the Bible from Genesis to Revela- tion, we would find on almost every page, God is, but nowhere that He was a God of love. Oh, how we would long to know what He is. We might imagine that we could see angels and archangels flying over the bright plains of Heaven on rapid wing, and thousands of saints about the great white throne, looking into the word of God in silent and solemn search to know what this God is. But, oh, we see the beautiful word love. "God is Love." Oh, blessed revelation, putting an end to all our fears and doubts. Glorious God Is Love pledge for our present, future and eternal happi- ness. This great God, this mighty God who created all things, who inhabited eternity long before one star revolved in its sphere, before an angel moved a wing, who was as per- fect before the birth of time as He will be when time shall be no more, as infinitely holy when He inhabited alone the solitude of immensity as He k now with the songs of angels and archangels sounding in His ears. It was love that inspired this great God to the creation of man, and to the redemption of the fallen race. It was love that triumphed over sin to give us glory. Love is the theme in heaven today of angels and saints, and will be forever. If we could ask all the angels and redeemed spirits, "What is God?" the answer would be, "Love." "God is Love." When He wishes to manifest His power, He divides the waves of the sea ; when He wishes to display His justice, He sends a deluge over the whole earth; when He wishes to manifest His glory, He speaks again, and away yonder in space a world flies into ex- istence, and goes revolving in its sphere. But when He wishes to manifest His love, which is the greatest of all, He sends His Son from the throne of glory, where He is worshiped by God Is L © y e angels and archangels, to die on the cross for a lost world. I sometimes think, when standing on some high mountain peak, looking off on the beautiful world, that we have but to open our eyes to see that God is a God of love. Away in the distance we see verdant hills, shady groves, sparkling streams, meandering rivers and purple mountains, all arrayed in their splendor like the robes of morning, when curling mists crown the mountain top, and sapphire clouds build a throne for the sun. Far away in the distance snow- capped mountain peaks shining like great masses of silver in the heavens, which seem to kiss the creator and builder of all things. The blue sky bending over us like God in love over all things. Here and there a fleecy cloud hovering over the heavens as if riding on angels' wings. The gen- tle breeze playing over hill and dale as if to sip the sweet odor from the flowers, and bear the songs of birds away on their bosom to the very gates of heaven, and we think, ah, surely the creator of this world must be a God of love, but we have seen the signs of wrath mingled and blended with the beauties of nature. We have seen the sun that adorns the chamber of the east, with his rosy rays of light, turn himself into a consuming fire, scorching and burning the green 8 GodlsLove earth. The far-away, glittering mountain peak seems to be the resting place of angels, yet at times its fiery heart begins to throb and beat, and hurl forth lavic flames of fire, and bury cities at its base. The gentle breeze turns itself into a mighty storm, and drives vessels upon some rocky shore, and then we can hear the waves mourning over the dead. How true, as one writer has said, "'This earth is the middle spot between heaven and hell." The glory of heaven and the midnight shades of hell have passed over the same spots of earth. The place of prayer is separated only by a single dwelling from the hell of the gambler. Truth and falsehood walk side by side through our streets. Joy and agony look out at the same window. Hope and despair dwell under the same roof. The sounds of the lute and the viol have scarcely died away before the groans of dying come following after. Take the wings of light and love and girdle the world, and you will find no path so bright and lovely, filled with singing birds and blooming flowers that the cloud of mourning will not cast its shadow. No height so lofty and serene that will not be beaten by storms and tempests. No home so cheerful and happy that death will not find its victim. Look yonder God Is Love at that happy home on the hillside, hear that little girl singing so sweetly far away upon the morn- ing air, as the song is borne it thrills the hearts of all with joy and gladness; then look again at the same home at midnight, see the father and mother standing by the bedside of the same little girl, who is now dying. The next morning she is cold in death, ready for the grave, and the mother thinks, "Can this be a God of love?" and then she says, "Oh, yes, God kissed her soul away to the land where she will sing sweeter, and be much happier than in our earthly home." The greatest love of which I wish to speak is that in God giving His Son to die for the world. He sends Him in the form of sinful man, and in the likeness of sinful flesh. What humiliation for the Son and what wonderful condescension for the Father who gave Him ! Oh ! what love is that which conceived the idea of bringing the Son of God in contact with our misery, that we through His death and suffering might live for- ever. See how the world treated the one who came to save them ; they dragged Him in trial from one hall to another, and all night yelling for His blood. Then see them drag Him to Cal- vary, and nail Him to the cruel cross, and hear Him groan beneath our sins, until at last He God Is Love cries, "It is finished," and when He said, "It is finished," we might imagine the angels shouted through the fields of the dead, "finished," until the saints leaped from their graves with joy. Then away down to the mouth of hell they shouted, "It is finished," till demons and devils trembled. Then up, up, through the ethereal blue, they shouted, far away toward the home of the saints, passing the stars they shouted, "It is finished." Passing through the pearly gates, along the gold-paved streets, and through the shining mansions, and over the crystal sea, and bright plains of eternal glory, they shout, "It is finished." This shall be the theme of the re- deemed spirits about the great white throne, say- ing, "It is finished ; glory, honor, and power be unto the Lamb forever." What love God had in giving His Son to die for this lost world, no human language can ex- press. See what love one man may have for another. As I once read of a rich nobleman, who, with his wife and little girl, were driving across the plains of Russia to a certain station, and as they came to a small village about dark, and yet a long distance to make across the frozen plains, they stopped and asked the proprietor of a hotel for a pair of fresh horses to hitch in front God Is Lore of his, so as to make the station a little while after dark. The proprietor said there was danger in crossing the plains after dark, as they might be destroyed by wolves, but the nobleman said, "Bring on the horses." They were brought and hitched in front, then said he, "Drive as rapidly as you can." As they had gone some distance over the plains in the moonlight, the little daugh- ter said : "Papa, what is that sound I hear in the distance that sounds like wolves?" He listened and said, "Only the sighing of the winds through the leafless forest." On they went, but in a little while she became restless again, and said, "Papa, I do hear the sound of wolves in the distance." He listened again, and far back in the still, cold, frosty night air, he heard a sound, he knew too well what it meant. There was a young man that sat in the carriage by the driver, whom he had reared up in his own home ; he said to the young man, "You get your revolver ready, and I'll get mine." Soon the wolves were all about the car- riage, howling for their blood. They fired and two wolves fell dead ; he said, "Get your revolver ready again, they will come more furiously than ever when they get the taste of blood." Soon the wolves overtook them again, they fired and two more wolves fell dead, then their ammuni- God Is Love tion was gone. Soon they heard the howl of the wolves again. Then said the rich nobleman, "Cut one of the horses loose." They ran it into the forest, killed it, and sucked its blood; in a little while they came again; another horse was cut loose, and they took its life. Then said the nobleman, "Drive as rapidly as you can." Soon they heard the wolves coming, the young man that sat by the driver turned and said to the nobleman and his wife and little girl: "I love you, and I only have one request to ask of you, that is, when I am dead, look after my wife and little child," then before the nobleman could pre- vent, he leaped from the carriage among the wolves, and soon they took his life. Then driv- ing rapidly they reached the station before the wolves came again. They went back the next day with a coffin and found only the hair and bones of the young man, and as they gathered them up, and putting them in the coffin they said : "Didn't he love us? he died to save us." After he was buried they reared a great monument over his grave, and as the summers came and went, they would visit his grave, and stand with tears in their eyes and say, "Didn't he love us? he died to save us." So we should look to the cross, with tears in our eyes, and say, "Oh, didn't He love us, didn't He love us ? He died to save us." II Hm tbe UCia^ "Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." — John xiv, 6. When I was in California in 1894, a man said to me one day, "No ship ever came into San Fran- cisco but what came through the Golden Gate." So I said, "Yes, and no ship ever went to heaven but what went through the Cross of Calvary." As Talmage said once in New York that he had a dream one night and saw thousands come to the gate of heaven for entrance and the angel at the gate said, "From whence came you?" They said, "We are Methodists." The angel said, "Can not enter here." Then there came another troop and the angel asked them from whence they came, and they said, "We are Presbyterians." The angel said, "Can not enter here." Then came still another troop toward the gate; the angel asked them the same thing, and they said, "We are Baptists." But the angel also said to them, "Ye can not enter here." So the angel threw the gate shut in the face of all the troops that came saying we belong to some denomination or creed. 14 I Am the Way Then the angel looked away out in the distance toward the dark, sin-cursed earth and saw a white troop coming that no man could number, greater than the sands of the sea ; as they came near the gate, the angel asked them from whence they came. They said, "We came from that sin- ful world back yonder through the blood of the Son of God." Then said the angel, "This is your home. ,, As the gate swung wide open, they entered with shouts, "Glory and honor be unto the Father and Son for .the blood that was shed on the cross." Through the blood is the only way to heaven. No one will ever enter by any other road. The human race for thousands of years have tried all kinds of ways that the mind could conceive, but find no way to get to heaven, only the way that Christ made in His death on the cross, called in Hebrews a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. No one will ever take this way as long as they have a way of their own. The man to come to Christ must first see himself dead to all good acts and to all his ways. As long as he thinks he can do something to merit salvation he does not yet see himself dead in sin. The Lord stayed away until Lazarus was dead, IAmtheWay 15 not sick or almost dead, but dead, before He could raise him from the dead. So the sinner must first see himself dead to all good deeds, and dead in sin before Christ can raise him to eternal life. Just like the leper that was put outside of the city that continued to cry all the time, "Unclean, unclean." If you had gone by the city at midnight, heard him cry, "Unclean," or any time in the day, still the same cry, "Un- clean." So he kept this cry up night and day all the time until he was one solid scab from the top of his head to the sole of his feet; not a sound speck of flesh anywhere about his body. Like in the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought unto the priest; And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet and hyssop; And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water; As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and 16 IAmtheWay shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the one that was killed over the running water ; And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field." So if you had been living at that time, as you would have seen the living bird, with its pinions red with blood, light in a tree in your yard, you would have said, "Look at that bird yonder, a man has been healed from leprosy somewhere today." As this bird went, in its flight, everywhere, telling a man had been healed from leprosy. These two birds rep- resent the two types of the one Christ. The dying bird represents the dying Christ for our sins on the cross. The living bird, with blood on its wings, the risen Christ who sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for the children of God. "Who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justifi- cation." Romans iv, 25. So it is alone through the merits of what Christ did on the cross that the Father will wel- come us into the City of the New Jerusalem. To illustrate the death of Christ: During our late war between the North and South, there was a lawyer in the South who had spent much of his I Am the Way 17 means and time in taking care of the Southern soldiers. So one morning before going to his office, he said to his wife he could not spend any more money nor time in the support of the poor soldiers. As he went that morning to his office, no sooner had he entered when a poor, ragged soldier boy came knocking at his door, the law- yer cried out, "Get away from my office, I can lose no time nor money with you, I have already lost too much money with you poor soldiers/' But the poor ragged boy seemed to pay no atten- tion to what he said, but kept on coming into the office. As he came near the lawyer, he said to him, "Here is a letter from your son, who died on the battle-field, and I was by his side when dying, and this is the last message from your son, Charley." As the father took the letter and began to read it, it read something like this : "Dear father, when you receive this message your son Charley will be buried in some unknown grave on the battle-field, but this young man who brings this note waited on me kindly until the last and now, dear father, for my sake, you and mother take him and treat him as you did your own son, Charley.' ' The lawyer then said to the poor boy, "Sit here in this chair till I order a carriage." In a few minutes a carriage 18 I Am the Way was at the office. The lawyer and the young man got in, and as they drove up to the house the lawyer called to his wife and said, "Here is the boy that waited on Charley when he was dy- ing, and he has a letter from Charley telling us to take this poor, ragged soldier boy and treat him as we did our own son, and do it for his sake." So the mother cried out, "Give him Charley's room, his clothes and his place at the table." Now, they did not do that for anything good they saw in the poor soldier boy, but for the love they had for their own dear boy that was dead. Now, God will receive us into heaven for the sake of His Son's death on the cross and not for anything we have done or ever can do. All the merit in going to heaven is in the death of Christ. It is said that Napoleon had once passed the sentence of death on one of his soldiers. And as he passed through a hall he saw a girl in front of him on her knees with long hair flowing down her back, with eyes turned toward heaven, crying out, "Napoleon, pardon, oh ! dear sir, par- don." Napoleon said, "Pardon whom?" She said, "My father ;" he said "Your father is guilty and must die." The girl said, "I am not here to plead for justice, I knew he would have to I Am the Way 19 die, but only for pardon for my guilty father." Now, we do not come to plead justice for the remission of sins, but only as guilty men for pardon. Deliverance must come alone through Jesus Christ. The angels in heaven could look on and pity us but could neither save us nor help us. Jesus is the only one that can do anything for our souls' salvation; and, even He could do nothing until He consented to die for us. But He was willing to do this. He became a man. He suffered death upon the cross for us. On the cross He made for us a life-boat by which we can sail to heaven. He keeps this life-boat sailing round the old wrecked world all the time, and He tells His servants to keep calling to those who are perishing to come on board the life-boat and be saved. This boat never can be too full. It never can be sunk. It is able to save unto the uttermost all who will get into it in the right way. This is the deliverance which Jesus brings to a lost world. Now, when we receive Christ we are in the way to heaven, and He not only puts us in the way but keeps us safely in the way. For example: Some years ago there was a good minister in England whose name was John Newton. He had a dream once which illus- trates God's keeping power as well as His saving I Am the Way power. In his dream Mr. Newton thought he was on board a ship which was laying at anchor in the Bay of Naples, and he was leaning over the side of the vessel looking at the city which lay off in the distance with Mount Vesuvius behind it, when a beautiful angel came to him and gave him a gold ring. He told him to take great care of that ring and never to part with it on any account. He said that if he kept it safe he would always be happy and when he died it would take him to heaven. Mr. Newton then promised the angel that he would never part with the ring as long as he lived. Then the angel left him. Soon after he was gone another person came up to him, looking very different from the angel, he began conversation with Mr. Newton, by and by he saw the ring, which the angel had given him, upon his finger. Then he asked some questions about it. Mr. Newton told him how the ring was given to him and how his happiness and sal- vation depended on his keeping that ring, and that it would make him happy in this world and take him to heaven at last. The stranger then laughed at him. Then told him what a foolish thing it was to think that keeping that ring would make him happy and at last take him to heaven. He went on talking in this way and said so much IAmtheWay 21 about it that at last Mr. Newton began to feel ashamed of himself, and finally, at the stranger's suggestion, he actually took the ring from his finger and dropped it into the sea. He had no sooner done so than his tempter turned and re- proached him for his folly. He told him that in throwing away that ring he had thrown away his happiness and lost his soul. Poor Mr. Newton was in great distress. Then he dreamed that his angel friend came back and plunged into the water just where the ring had been dropped, up he came with the ring in his hand. Mr. Newton shouted for joy when he saw the ring and eagerly reached out his hand to take it again, but the angel said, "No, I can not trust it to you any more, if I shall you might lose it again. I shall keep it for you and then it will be safe." So Mr. Newton saw when he awoke that the angel repre- sented Christ, the tempter, satan, and the ring, his salvation. So Jesus must keep us as well as save us. As Paul said, "For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." So Christ will have all the glory in our salvation. "But God forbid that I should glory- save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by 22 I Am the Way whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." A dying warrior requested that the flag under which he had fought and conquered might be placed beneath his head for a pillow as life was ebbing away. So the believer, when paleness dims his eye and coldness creeps over his limbs, counts it his highest comfort to know he has fought the good fight of faith under the blood-stained banner of the cross, and can now say when dying, "No fear of death, victory, vic- tory, through the blood of the Lamb." Xaw an& (Brace* "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight ; for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Romans iii, 20. The law does not make sin, but reveals to man his lost condition. As Paul said, "I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." Paul was just as sinful before the law had shown him his state as afterwards, but he did not have a knowledge of his lost condi- tion. Just like a man goes into a strange village after night, next morning looks out of his win- dow and sees verdant hills, beautiful valleys, sparkling streams, and far off in the distance the blue mountains towering away into the heavens. All of this beautiful scenery was lying around the village in the night as well as in the day, but the stranger had no knowledge of it until the sunlight revealed it. As Paul said, "For I was alive without the law once, but when the com- mandment came, sin revived and I died." That is by the law Paul saw his danger. Just like a man in a cave where it is so dark he can not see 24 Law and Grace his hand before him, he then has no knowledge of any danger, but all at once, suppose the sunlight should flash down through a crevice in the cave and he sees a wild beast crouched near, ready to leap upon him, and on the other side a serpent just ready to strike him, in this darkness he was in danger but did not know it. Now the sunlight did not make the beast nor the serpent, but only revealed his danger. So the law does not make sin but only re- veals to man his sins. We can never stand before God justified by the law, and if we are to be justified it must be by grace, and if we are not justified we are not saved. "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." God did not intend that man should get to heaven by keeping the law, but through the blood of Christ. It takes the blood to save the best man in the world as well as the vilest, for the Bible teaches, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet ofifend in one point is guilty of all." See, this law has ten command- ments, just like a watch with ten wheels, if one is broken the watch will not run, so if you break one commandment you are guilty of the whole. Suppose you were hanging by a chain over a precipice, that chain consists of ten links, and if Law and Grace 25 some one were to take a hammer and strike a blow and break one link, you would go to the bottom just the same as if all the links had broken at once. Then if you break one commandment you are just as much condemned as if you had broken them all. So if we were to live in the world fifty years and have but one evil thought, or speak one unkind word, that would be sin, and sin is the transgression of the law and under the law we would all have to die and go to helL "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." There has never been a man nor a woman on earth but what the law could bring a charge against them for sin except Christ. God did not give the law and ten commandments to make us so good that He could take us to heaven, but to prove to us that we were so bad that our only way to heaven was to accept His salvation. "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Now, when we believe on Christ we are dead to the law and its charges forever. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth ; wherefore, my beloved brethren, ye are become dead also to the law by 26 Law and Grace the body of Christ that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God." When a guilty murderer is tried by the law and is hanged, he is then dead to that law for- ever, and the law is dead with its charges to him forever. He paid the penalty, the law said hang him. So the law spent its force on him and now he is dead and gone into a spiritual world where the law can never come. Now, we would not talk about the dead man in a spiritual world taking the law of the state that hanged him as a rule by which to live. Now, when we believe on Christ, we are dead to the law and its charges forever, and it is dead to us, because Christ, our sin-bearer, took all of the charges of the law on Himself, and set us free. So when we cross the blood line we get into a spiritual world, where the law can never come. Now, we can look back to the cross and say, "Bless God, all paid there by the blood of Christ ; no more sin laid to our charge, past, present, and future, all gone for- ever." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My word and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. By the which will we are sanctified through Law and Grace the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." What a contrast between law and grace. When the law was given to condemn this world, it was amid lightning and thundering, and the mountain smoking and not so much as a beast could come near the mountain without death. But when Christ came to this world to save men from sin, there was seen a bright star in the eastern sky and a light shown over the fields where the shepherds kept their flocks, and sud- denly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will toward men, for unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Also the first preaching of the law about three thousand souls were slain. When grace was preached about three thousand souls were brought to spiritual life. Some one may say, "How are we going to get Abraham, David, and Peter to heaven?" When the Bible says, "And ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Abraham and Peter went to heaven, pardoned liars, and David, a pardoned murderer, just as 28 Law and Grace if he had committed that sin before he had trusted the Lord. That was why Nathan said to David, "The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not die/' Nathan understood the atone- ment ; he knew that when David looked forward to the coming of Christ and trusted Him, that his sins were all paid for by the blood of the Lord, and that God could not be a just God and accept the blood of His Son in payment for David's sins and then require David to make settlement for which his Lord had paid. That would not be just any more than for a man to make another pay a debt twice. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Romans iv, 8. All true believers stand before God in Christ with all their sins covered, just as if they had never committed a sin in their lives. The be- liever can say, "I have no sin against me in God's book. If I were to turn over God's eternal book I should see every debt of mine receipted and canceled." 'Here's pardon for transgressions past, It matters not how black their cast, And O my soul with wonder view, For sins to come here's pardon too; Fully discharged by Christ I am From Christ's tremendous curse and blame. Law and Grace 29 "Complete atonement thou hast made, And to its utmost farthing paid, What e'er they people owed, How, then, can wrath on me take place Now standing in God's righteousness, And sprinkled with His blood. "Since He hath my discharge procured; And freely in my place endured, The whole of wrath divine, Payment, God will not twice demand. First at my bleeding assurity's hand And then at mine." When we believe on Christ what becomes of our sins? Let the Bible with a few verses answer this question : "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgres- sions from us." Psalm ciii, 12. Who can ever find out how far the east is from the west? "Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption ; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." Isaiah xxxviii, 17. Who knows where the back of God is to be found? "He will turn again; He will have compassion upon us ; He will subdue our iniquities ; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Micah vii, 19. So you must go to the depth of the sea to find your sins. See in the 30 Law and Grace New Testament : "And by Him, all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." Acts xiii, 39. Those in heaven can not be any more than justified from all things. "And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Hebrews x, 17. Bless God, in time nor in eter- nity, no sin will ever come up against the be- liever. Now, to illustrate this fact, suppose two men, A and B, owe some merchant five hundred dollars each, and at some time both become par- alyzed and are not able to work, and are worth nothing, not able to pay a cent of their debt; just like the unsaved man, he is poor, blind, and naked, nothing good in him, not able to put away the least sin. Now, some rich man, say Mr. Brown, of New York, comes to visit this mer^ chant, and the merchant tells Mr. Brown about these two poor men who have been paralyzed and are not able to pay this just debt nor to take care of their families. Mr. Brown was touched with sympathy for these men. Yet they never did anything for him, just as we never did any- thing for Christ. Mr. Brown then said to the merchant, "I will pay the debt, so they can die honest, and all they will have to do is just to receive the receipt." So he deposited five hun- Law and Grace dred dollars for each of the men, but that would only pay off the past debt and leave the poor men to die in poverty, but he then puts in the safe of the merchant five thousand dollars for each of the poor men, which will be enough to supply their wants till death. In a few days after the money has been deposited to pay their debts, one of these poor men, say A, comes into the store, the merchant says, "I have good news for you/' "What good news?" says the poor man. "Well," says the merchant, "Mr. Brown, of New York came here the other day and I told him about what you and Mr. B owed me and how poor you were and could not pay the debt, and my dear friend, Mr. Brown left the money here to pay what you owed me, and that is not the best, he left five thousand dollars in my safe for you and your family, so I will give you the re- ceipt and your debt is paid." The poor, par- alyzed man gets up and whirls and goes out mut- tering and swearing and saying, "I am no old tramp that I am to have a man pay my debts in that way. I will pay my own debts." Now, this man is like the man who says he is going to heaven by his morality and good deeds, of such Jesus calls thieves and robbers. See, the other poor man, B, comes into the store and sits down, 32 Law and Grace the merchant sees him shedding tears and then he says to B, "What is your trouble?" "Well, last night I woke up and heard my little children crying for bread and we had nothing to eat, and I said to my wife, This will kill me to hear this cry from my dear children and we have nothing to eat and owe five hundred dollars and I am not able to pay one cent of the debt. The debt is just, so when I am dead and buried people will pass my grave and say there is a dishonest man.' All this will kill me, I wanted to take care of my family and pay my debts and die an honest man, but now it is not in my power." The merchant tells him he has good news for him. "No," says the man, "I don't think any good news for a poor, paralyzed man like my- self." "Yes," the merchant tells him of Mr. Brown, who came from New York and left five hundred dollars in his hands to pay the five hundred that he owed him and then he deposited five thousand in his safe to supply him and his family until death. At first the poor man can not believe it, the news is too good, but the mer- chant takes him to his safe and shows him the money. Then the poor man says, "Thank God, I can die honest and take care of my family. I will love and praise the man until my dying Law and Grace 33 day for paying my debt and leaving me this money so I will not have to buy on credit. Let me get home and tell my wife." See the man running up the street and over the hill in sight of his cabin, shouting as he runs, his wife hears the shouting, she comes out to meet him, saying, "Poor husband has lost his mind. Just as I expected with all these troubles. " "No, wife, not crazy, a man from New York paid our debt and left us five thousand dollars to clothe and feed us while we live." Then the wife begins to shout with joy and praising the man, saying, "The best man we ever heard of in our life. Oh, we will love him until our dying day with all our heart." Now, that is just w T hat the Lord Jesus Christ will do when we take Him as our Saviour. He will put all our past sins away and settle for all the future, so we can say as Paul, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." Like John also, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and 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." Faith in God's word will take away all the clouds between this earth and heaven. Like the little boy when dying, and the father stood by the bed, weeping, and the little 34 Law and Grace son said, "Father, why are you weeping?" He said, "Son, you are dying." "Oh! father," said the little boy, "don't weep, if I am dying then to- night I will be in heaven and be so happy with Jesus." Now, if we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, we will spend a sweet eternitv in heaven. REV. W. W. SMITH 1907 TKHben H See tbe 3Bloot>, ''And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." Exodus xii, 13. Now, to illustrate this subject, let us imagine ourselves away back yonder on the other side of the Cross of Calvary, down in Egypt, instead of being here in 1907 in America, and this to be the night of Egyptian Judgment. We have gone down into Egypt on an excursion and we get there just about sundown, and go to the boarding houses and hotels for supper; as we are eating we hear from the conversation of the people that there is great excitement of some kind in the camp, and we ask what is the trouble. The peo- ple tell us such trouble as has never been in Egypt before, that tonight is the night of Egyp- tian Judgment, and the first-born in many homes will die. So after supper we all go out for a walk, as we come to the first tent we see blood on the door-post, and you know blood causes feelings of awe and alarm as we think the life of something has been taken. 36 When I See the Blood As I was preaching in St. Louis some years ago, walking the streets one day, I saw a man come out of a saloon, just as he came out on the street he fell and the blood ran from his mouth and in a little time he was dead. As the people came rushing along the pavement and saw they were stepping into blood, they would stop and step back as they looked at the blood, thinking- some one's life had flowed out there. So we go into this tent in Egypt, where the blood is on the door-post, as we enter we find the parents somewhat in fear and dread of something awful. We ask them w T hat is the trouble, and they tell us many mothers are going to lose their first- born in Egypt tonight. We then ask them if there is no remedy to prevent the death of their children. They tell us, "Yes, did you see the blood ?" and they tell us that God told them to put the blood of a lamb on the door-post and as He went by at midnight He would pass over their home and the first-born would not die. "If this be true, then why are you troubled about your first-born dying ?" "Well," they tell us, "when we think of the Word of God and the blood, we have no doubts or fears, but when we think of our lives and the w r ay we have lived we then get into doubts about our child living." So we do When I See the Blood 37 not like gloomy people, filled with fears and doubts that make God a liar, and we leave the first tent and go to the second. Oh ! how differ- ent as we enter this tent. We see the blood on the door just as we saw on the first tent, but see how happy the people are in this tent. They have their loins girded for the journey and are eating on the roasted lamb, talking and laughing as if they had never known or heard of troubles, or even death. We ask, "Why are you so happy in here when this is the night of Egyptian Judg- ment, when the first-born will be left dead at midnight in many homes ?" "Ah I" they say, "no one will die here ; did you see the blood on the door as you came in the tent ? and we have God's word that no one will die here. This is the best night we have ever had in Egypt. Our fathers nor grandfathers never heard any such good news. We will start tonight to the land that flows with milk and honey, and tomorrow in our march, we will look back and see the smoke ris- ing from the old brick-kilns and then we will say farewell to Egyptian slavery forever. Now, you see, we are very happy." We now go to the third tent, as we enter we see no blood on the door-post, yet the people are happy there, but from another cause. We ask where is the blood. 38 When I See the Blood as we see none. And they tell us that the people in the tents we were in are old cranks, trying to frighten the people, that there will be no trouble in the land such as they were looking for, and they are just as safe as they are with the blood on their doors. Now, this last tent represents the class of peo- ple for whom Jesus died, but are happy in their sins and have never accepted the blood of Christ. So they must go to hell in their love of sin. The first tent represents those who have been re- deemed by the blood and are just as safe and cer- tain of heaven as in the second, but still filled, at times, with fears and doubts and unhappy be- cause they look at their own lives instead of believing what God has said in the Bible about the death of His Son. The second tent repre- sents the class of God's people who have been born again and so believe God's word as never to doubt what Christ did for them on the cross. Now, in the first tent the first-born is just as safe, if they do have doubts, as in the second tent where they have no doubts, but they are not so happy nor useful in God's service. It was nothing but the blood that kept the first-born from dying. It was not the blood baptism, prayers, and faithfulness in good deeds that made When I See the Blood 39 them safe, but only the blood. The Word of God gave them a knowledge of the value of the blood. From the word of God they knew the first-born could not die, so they had no need for doubts. Now it is only the blood that makes us safe and certain of heaven, and not the blood and our good acts in life. The Bible says, "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. ,, If nothing but the blood of Christ puts away sin, and one soul, redeemed by that blood goes down to hell then the whole world will go there, but thank God, no soul ever went there that had been made white in the blood of the Lamb. The poorest child of God is just as certain of heaven as the best Christian that ever lived, for he has the blood of Christ and that is all the best Chris- tian has to take him to heaven. But the child of God who lives such a poor Christian life is not as happy nor as useful as the one who never doubts the Word about' his home in the better world. God will not put His children in hell for doubting His word, but will chasten them as a loving father would his child. "If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments ; If they break my statutes, 40 When I See the Blood and keep not my commandments ; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving- kindness will I not utterly take from him, noj suffer my faithfulness to fail/' Psalms 89. So when we have a knowledge of what Christ has done for us from His Word, it ought to take away all doubts. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish." What is faith? It is giving credit to the Word of God. To make this plain, take some little girl, twelve or thirteen years old, whose parents have been good and kind to the child, and they have done everything they could for the good and happiness of their daughter. So one night, as this child goes to retire, she says to her parents, "If I die tonight do not throw my body out on the street and let the dogs eat my flesh." Then the mother says, "Daughter, why do you talk that way? Do you not know if you were dead we would bury you as nicely as we could, and then be so sad that our sw T eet little girl was gone and we could no more hear you singing your sweet songs as you ran through the hall and up and down the stairway in our home. Oh, how dark home would be without our daughter." And yet the When I See the Blood 41 child would start up the stairway and repeat, "I am afraid you will throw me out on the street if I die.'' How wicked that would be in the daugh- ter to look that good father and mother in the face as the tears run down the cheeks of the par- ents and doubt their w T ord. Ah, how wicked, but how much more wicked for us to look to the cross and see Christ dying for us and yet doubt His word. The parents had never suffered for the child as He suffered for us. Look at the treat- ment which Jesus received from those whom He came to save. They called Him hard names ; they told falsehoods about Him ; they said He was a glutton and a drunkard, and even that He had a devil. They drove Him out of their cities ; they took Him up as if He had been a thief and a robber ; they bound Him and mocked Him ; they put a purple robe and a crown of thorns upon Him; they smote Him with the palms of their hands ; they stripped Him of His clothes ; they tore His blessed body with cruel scourges ; they condemned Him to death ; they nailed Him to the cross, and mocked and made sport of Him as He was hanging there in dreadful agony, bleeding and dying. And how did He act toward those who were nailing Him to the cross? He never spoke one 42 When I See the Blood unkind word. When He was reviled He reviled not again. He* was gentle and kind to all. He prayed for His' murderers as He hung upon the cross with the blood streaming from His torn and mangled limbs, and His body all tortured with those dreadful wounds, He cried, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." See that awful, cruel death on the cross. See how His back the scourges tear, Unto the bloody pillar bound ; The ploughers make long furrows there, Till all His body is one wound. In scorn they robe Him, crown, adore; In spite they rend His- robe away; They crush Him with that burden sore They drag Him up the accursed way. His sacred limbs they stretch, they tear, With nails they fasten to the wood ; His sacred limbs exposed and bare, Or only covered with His blood. Behold His temples crowned with thorn, His bleeding hands spread out so wide ; His streaming feet transfixed and torn, The fountain gushing from His side. Where is the King of Glory now, The everlasting Son of God ? The Immortal hangs His languid brow The Almighty faints beneath the load. When I See the Blood 43 How can we doubt the word of one who loved us with such love as that? If we have taken Christ as our Saviour His death has settled for all our sins and we are as certain of heaven as if we were there now. "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life." I once read of a father and son that illus- trates this verse: The son became so rebel- lious the father drove the boy from home. Some- time after that the mother on a dying bed, asked her husband if she could not have her son to come home so she could talk with him before her death. The father said no, the boy had been too rebellious and he had driven him from home and did not wish to see him, but the mother con- tinued to plead so earnestly until at last the father sent a telegram for his son to come home. When the son came home the dying mother called the father on one side of the bed and the son on the other, taking them by the hand and then say- ing, "Son be reconciled to father over your dying mother's body." But the son shook his head and said, "No, father drove me from home." Then she turned to the father and said, "Will you be reconciled to son over my dying body?" He 44 When I See the Blood said, "No, I will not speak to him." So the mother continued pleading, holding to the hand of father and son until the last breath. When dead, the son, looking into the cold dead face of his mother, then let go her hand and looking over her dead body into his father's face said, "Father, will you pardon me over mother's dead body?" The father said yes, and embraced his son. So the father and son became reconciled to each other over the mother's dead body. So we become reconciled to God by the death of His Son on the cross. Some years ago we saw in the papers an illus- tration of the way of salvation. A man had been condemned in a Spanish court to be shot, but being an American citizen, and also of English birth, the consuls of the two countries interposed and declared that the Spanish authorities had no power to put him to death. What did they do to secure his life when their protest was not suffi- cient ? They wrapped him up in their flags ; they covered him with the Stars and Stripes, and then defied the executioners. "Now fire a shot if you dare, for if you do so you defy the nations represented by those flags, and you will bring the powers of those two great empires upon you." When I See the Blood 45 There stood the man, and though a single shot might have ended his life, yet he was sur- rounded as though encased in steel. So Jesus Christ has taken our guilty souls ever since we believed in Him, and has wrapped around us the blood-red flag of His atoning sacrifice, and before God can destroy those of us who are wrapped in the blood of the atonement, He must reject His Son and dishonor His sacrifice, and that the great God will never do. Blessed be His name. Wew Creature Un Cbrist- "Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature ; old things are passed away ; behold, all # things are become new." 2 Cor. v, 17. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." Romans viii, 1 This scripture shows that a man must get into Christ to become a new creature, that noth- ing he can do outside of Christ will make a new . creature out of him or save him from the curse of sin. Many changes are going on about us in this world. Look at the seasons. What changes they are making every year. Winter comes on with its frost and cold winds. Then the flow- ers fade and die, and the little birds go in their flight south in search of a warmer home. The leaves fade and die, and leave the trees naked and bare and the winds then wail through the leafless forest, as if weeping over some lost friend. The whole earth becomes covered with snow and ice. But after awhile the sun returns with its hot rays and the snow and ice begin to New Creature In Christ 47 melt, and the earth begins to show itself again. The fields begin to get green, and the meadows begin to bloom with flowers, and the little streams murmur by the verdant banks singing their way to their ocean home. The hills and mountains again come out in their beautiful robes. The birds return with their sweet songs. And the old world that seemed for a few months to be dead, is all alive again. Now these kind of changes are going on about us all through life. But these changes will not make us a new creature. This is such a great change that when Christ was here on earth and got into conversation with a man named Nico- demus that He called it a birth and said to Nico- demus, "Ye must be born again." Now we will all have to get this new life or never enter heaven. A great many men think and teach today that this is nonsense to talk about a man being bom again or becoming a new creature in Christ. Men teach that when we are born in human flesh that our hearts are not bad but like pieces of white paper and if we are careful that nothing bad be written on them, they will always be clean and good. But this is contrary to the Word of God. David said, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." 48 New Creature In Christ And what was true about David's case has been true about the whole world. David was born with a sinful heart and all that have been born since have had the same kind of a heart. David says again, "The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies/' This writing of David shows us that when we are born, if sin does not appear at once, that it is in our heart. See how mad the little child will get in a short time after it has been in the world. Is not that sin showing itself ? Now our hearts, when we are born, are like the garden when ready to plant in the spring, we do not see the weeds but the seed is in the ground and soon the weeds come. Just so when we are born these wicked hearts are full of sin and it soon shows itself. And there must come a great change before we can enter heaven. We can not bring about this new life by what we can do. It does not come by good deeds that we do, such as reading the Bible, making good resolutions, joining the church, being baptized or saying prayers. We can not make for ourselves a new heart by anything we can do in this life. This I think can be well illustrated by a fable I once read. The fable said there was an emperor in China who had a great fondness for making pets New Creature In Christ 49 of pigs. Yet he did not like their dirty habit of running into the dirt and mud. But still, said it was not the fault of the pig, that the pig could be so taught that it would loathe the mud and be nice and clean like a lamb. So one day he said to one of his friends that he would prove to the world it was not the fault of the pig, but he would show how to make a pig nice and clean. Now he had a nice palace built for his pig, and as soon as the little pig could live without its mother, it was taken away from her, so it would learn no bad habits from her. The pig was put into this palace where it could get to no other pigs, and was fed from silver dishes and slept on carpet and had no mud in which to wallow. The emperor got some of the wisest men in his king- dom to take care of the pig and teach it. After awhile the old emperor said the pig's education was finished and he now had no bad habits. So one day the emperor told his servant to get the pet pig ready and they would take a walk and let the pig see some of the world, and let the world see how nice and clean an edu- cated hog would appear to the world. The ser- vant got the pig ready, dressed him up in a velvet jacket, embroidered with gold, and put gold rings on his legs. Now his pig looked so 50 New Creature In Christ nice as they went on their walk. Just as the emperor began to feel very proud of his pet pig, they came to a place where some pigs were wallowing in the mud. In a moment the pig forgot his clothes and his training, and before his teacher could do anything the pig broke loose and ran into the mud, wallowing with the other pigs. The poor emperor was then much disap- pointed. He .took his pig back and had him washed and put back into the palace, and said it was the fault of the other pigs that made him run into the mud. And he then said he would have him taught a little more and not go about other bad hogs with his pig and he would not act bad then like other pigs. So one day he told his servant to get the pig out again for another walk. This time they went through the garden of the palace where the pig could see no other hogs. They took a long walk, the pig was doing nicely till on their return they come along the back of the garden where there was a ditch full of mud. The pig had never seen this before and there was no other pig to set him a bad example, but into the mud the pig jumped and wallowed just like it did before. Now the emperor was in great distress. He loved his pig and he knew it was not the bad example of other hogs this New Creature In Christ 51 time, but only his piggish nature made him so fond of the mud. As the emperor was in great distress and did not know what to do, the fable says a fairy appeared and hearing what was done said to the emperor, "If you will give me your pig a little while I will make him hate dirt and love to be clean." "Oh ! do it," said the emperor, so the fairy took the pig in his arms, and open- ing his body, cut out his heart and put in a lamb's heart in its place. After this the emperor had no more trouble with his pig. It was nice and clean and never went about the mud any more. Now what a changed pig, what it loved before it now hated. While this is a fable it shows there must be a change of heart to make us act different. If you could take out the pig's heart and put in a lamb's, the pig would then act like a lamb and still look like a pig. So when we get a new heart or life our old Adam flesh just looks like a child of the devil, but we are not. We have become a child of God and can now act like one because old things have now passed away and all things become new. We have now a new life in our old Adam body. Yet our old Adam body has made no change, but a new heart came in that has changed our mind about sin and God. 52 New Creature In Christ Some may say, "How can I get this new life that I may be a child of God?" Just by looking to Christ. "Look unto me all ye ends of the earth and be saved." We are saved just like the child- ren of Israel were made whole when bitten by the fiery serpent, only by looking. The fiery serpent by which they were bitten was a poison serpent. The brazen serpent to which they looked, and were cured, had no poison. Now in Adam's fall came death upon the whole world because his fall brought the whole w r orld into sin. But looking to the second Adam, which is Christ, saves us from sin, because Christ has no sin. Just see how the bitten Israelite was made whole, not by anything he could do, or any physician could do for him. It was only look to the brazen serpent and live. Look at that poor mother by her bitten boy who seems to be dying. All in her home but this boy have been bitten and are now dead and buried in the sand. Her husband and three daughters and two sons have been borne away and covered up in the sands of the desert. How lonely the mother now feels by her last dying son, who wants to go with her to the land that flows with milk and honey. As the poor heart-broken mother is now by the side of her boy, wiping the death sweat from his face, all at New Creature In Christ 53 once the boy looks at his mother and said, ''What noise is that I hear?" * The mother answers, "Nothing, my dear boy, only the trouble is with your mind; I hear no sound." The mother's mind is so absorbed with her dying boy that she does not hear the noise in the camp. But the son turns again his dying eyes on his mother, and says, "Mother, listen, I do hear a noise that sounds to me like shouting in the camp." The son then said, "It may be, mother, that they have found some remedy for the poor bitten Israelite. Go to the door and see, there may be some help for me yet." The mother goes to the door and such wild excitement she never saw before in her life. She cries out to those running by her door, "What does all this mean?" They answer, "Good news to the bitten Israelite. Moses has a brazen serpent lifted upon a pole and all that look to the serpent are healed at once. And the shouts you hear are the shouts of those who are being healed." The poor mother then rushes back to her dear boy and said, "Son, there is a remedy." He then said, "What is the remedy?" She told him a brazen serpent on a pole and all that look at it are "healed at once. The son then said, "Oh ! mother, get me to the door that I may see it and be healed." Now the mother 54 New Creature In Christ lays hold of her son and pulls him to the door, and said, "Look yonder at the serpent shining in the sunlight/' But the boy is so near death, and his eyes so dimmed with death that it seems almost impossible for him to see the serpent. Just like thousands today who have the dark cloud of unbelief over their eyes so they can not see Christ. But the mother loves her boy and she continues to point toward the serpent and say, ''Look, look, look!" till all at once the boy makes one great leap from his mother's arms, shouting, "I saw the serpent, I saw the serpent, and I am well." He then runs through the camp, shouting and telling the others how he was healed when he looked and saw the serpent. Just so we are saved by looking to Christ on the cross who died for our sins. One look at Christ by the eye of faith will save from the wrath of sin forever. Oh ! how simple and plain is the way to heaven, and yet thousands are sinking down to hell on their good deeds, such as paying their debts, giving to the poor, reading their Bible and saying prayers. When it is only look to Christ and live forever. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." As Spurgeon New Creature In Christ 55 once said about the old colored man who said he fell down on the promise of God and never kicked. Like the little brother and sister who were once going along the railroad track one hot summer day, as they came to the entrance of a long tunnel on the road they stopped and the brother said to the sister, "If we should go through this tunnel we would save ourselves from the hot rays of the sun in crossing the high mountain." So they entered the tunnel, after they had gone some distance, the little brother stopped and said, "Listen, sister, I hear a train coming on this track and if w T e remain on the track the train will run over us and we will be killed and they will never know at home what became of us." So they got over on the other track, and they had only gone a short distance when the brother said again, " Sister, listen, a train is coming on this track and the two trains are going to pass in this dark tunnel." Now, the brother went across the track and found a rock against the side of the tunnel and said, "Come here, sister, and get on this rock and cling to it while the trains are passing." The brother went on the other side opposite the sister and got on a rock. As the trains were passing the brother would hollo, amid the rattle of the car wheels, 56 New Creature In Christ "Sister, cling to the rock and you will be safe." When the train had passed and the smoke began to die away, the brother crawled across the track and found his sister safe. So if we only cling to the Rock of Ages it will keep us safely while the train is passing through the valley of the shadow of death. love Ha tbe Wbole of IReUaton. "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision ; hut faith which worketh by love." Galations v, 6. Paul tells us again in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians : "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not char- ity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could re- move mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." So Paul tells us that we might speak with the eloquence of men and angels combined and have faith enough to remove mountains from their everlasting foundations and hurl them into the sea, and yet have no love, it would profit us nothing. That we might give all of our goods to feed the poor and our bodies to be burned, and if it was not love for Christ that moved us to do this it would be nothing in the sight of God. 58 Love Is the Whole of Religion Many people, and I think, many who are saved, have such a wrong idea of the religion of Christ. John in his first epistle says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God ; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God ; He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein is your love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love ; but perfect love casteth out fear : because fear hath torment. He that f eareth is not made perfect in love." Love delivers the soul from the power of legal motives. Many teach and preach that believers should turn away from sin through the fear of going to hell. Prove to the man who turns from sin, through the fear of going to hell, that there is no hell, and he will go right on into sin, so this is no love for Christ that keeps him from sin. Per- fect love leads a person to obey God, not because he fears the wrath of God or is afraid of going to hell, but because he loves God and loves to do His will. The true child of God should turn from sin because he hates and loathes it, and knows that in doing wrong that he would dis- please the one that loved him and gave Himself for him. Those who turn from sin through the Love Is the Whole of Religion 59 fear of going to "hell are ignorant of the religion of Jesus Christ, or they have no religion. The man who pays his debts for fear he will be sold out or lose his credit in the bank, is a dishonest man. But the man who pays his debts because he loves to do what is right and to make his neighbor happy, is the right kind of a man. The man who pays his debts through fear of the law and the man who turns from sin through fear of hell, do this only to keep self from suffering, and that is a selfish motive and is not the religion of Christ. The motive of the true child of God is to live for the glory of God and the good of others. The love of Christ moves us to be willing to do and to suffer for the good of others. Like the father who loves his family. He gives him- self up to hard labor day by day and from year to year, through the whole of a long life, rising early and eating the bread of carefulness con- tinually to promote the welfare of his family. Now, he does not make this self-denial and toil through this long life because he is afraid of his family doing him some harm, but because of the love he has for his home. So the love he has for his family makes the work not a grief nor a burden, but a delight. So the child of God should have such love for the cause of Christ that he 60 Love Is the Whole of Religion would be delighted in doing anything that he knew would please the Lord. Now, those who teach that we should turn from sin, through fear of going to hell, do not teach the truth, as it is a faith that works by love and not by fear. Some say they are going to be faithful to be saved and if not faithful will be lost. No one will ever go to heaven in this way, as no kind of work or prayers can ever put away sin. As Charles Finney said in one of his ser- mons, that the man who knows the way to heaven knows he might as well sit still till he is in hell as to try to do anything to save himself or to keep himself saved. Paul tells in Romans that we are justified by faith without works. We do not work to be saved, but because we are saved. We do not work to become a child of God, but work because we are a child and have been born into the King- dom. Do not work to get life, but because we have life. After we are begotten by the Holy Ghost we are just as much a child of God as we will be when we have been in heaven ten thou- sand years. The child born in an earthly home is just as much the child of that home the day it is born as it is when an hundred years old. We are just as much saved when we are justified by Love Is the Whole of Religion 61 the blood of Christ as Paul, or any other saint in heaven is saved, because we have been justified through Christ from all things, and those in heaven are not any more than justified from all things. So if you have been saved by the blood you have all that any one in heaven ever had to save them. So all that have been redeemed by the cross are in Christ and a part of His body, and if one goes down to hell all will go there. But thank God, no one who has ever been washed in the blood of Christ will ever go to hell, or has ever gone there. Those of us who are saved can not go to hell, for God can not lie, and He says, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them Me is greater than all ; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand." So all the wicked men of earth and all the devils in hell can not get one believer out of the hands of Christ, for He is stronger than all earth and hell combined. Some people say, "Well, the devil can not take you out of the hands of the Lord, but you can take yourself out." Well, if that is true, then man is stronger than God or the devil, and a man can go to hell any time, and whip the 62 Love Is the Whole of Religion devil and put out the fire, and then go to heaven and have things his own way there. But the truth is, God is stronger than man or devil, and what He has done they can not undo. So if we are a child of God we should have such faith in God's word as to cast out all fear of ever going to hell. We will never be happy in this life as long as we have the dark thunder cloud of doubt hanging between us and heaven. Perfect love and faith in God and His Word will cast out all fear of ever being lost. Now, the child of God should not think of serving Christ with slavish fear as a slave, but through love as Christ has redeemed them from the curse of sin and made them free. In slave time a negro woman was being sold in one of our Southern towns. As the poor slave stood on the street, weeping, while her little children were clinging to her clothes, a man passing by who never owned slaves, looked and saw the poor woman weeping and his heart was touched with pity, and he began bidding on her and bought the woman. When he went to her she was still weeping and he asked her what was her trouble. She said she had been sold and did not know into whose hands she had fallen. He told her that she was no longer a slave, that she Love Is the Whole of Religion 63 was free till her dying day. She did not under- stand how it could be until he told her that he had redeemed her from her slavery with his money and that she could take her little children and go where she pleased. She then caught him by the arm and said, "Let me serve you while I live, because you have set me free." So she went home with him, and as his friends came to visit him, they saw how hard this woman worked and they would say to her, "Why do you work so hard for this man when you are free and no longer a slave ?" She would say, "Oh, it was this man who set me free, and I serve him so faith- fully because I love him." Now, this is the reason why we should serve Christ, because He has redeemed us with His precious blood and we should have such love for Him as to be glad to do anything for Him. God wants His children to be happy and use- ful in this world, and if we are filled with doubts and fears about going to heaven we can neither be happy nor useful. Love for God and faith in His word will cast out all fear of death. That is why David said in twenty-third Psalm, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." He knew from the word of God that Christ 64 Love Is the Whole of Religion would "never leave nor forsake him," and that when going through the valley of death no dan- ger, as Christ would be with him. So we need have no more fears about going through the val- ley of death than David had, when we come to that valley and shadow of death Christ will be with us, and as we go through the valley He will talk with us and light up the way until we come out into heaven on the streets of gold with the redeemed all about us in their white robes, shout- ing, "Glory and honor be unto God and His Son forever." Bless God, with His Word as our tel- escope we can look away across the dark hills and mountains of this sin-cursed earth and see our home in glory. As Christian, in Pilgrim's Progress, when on his way to the Celestial City, came to a high hill called Clear, from this hill he took up his glass and looked and saw the City far away in the distance, and said every time he looked he got some of the glory of the City. So with the assurance we get from God's word we can stand on the high mountain of God's grace, where no cloud will ever intervene between us and that far-off home. MRS. W. W. SMITH 1907 Seek jfirst tbe IktnQfcom of (Bob* 4 'But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew vi, 33. Men show their wisdom in the choice they make in seeking the Kingdom of God and its riches, or the world and its riches. If I were to stand before an audience with a diamond in one hand, worth thousands, and a pebble in the other worth nothing, and then explain to the audience and show the difference in the two objects, and then ask some one in the audience to take their choice, and instead of taking the diamond they should take the pebble. We would say they were unwise. Now r , can we not reason the same way with spiritual things as with temporal? Will not the same principle hold out ? I think it will. When the man knows if he enters into the King- dom of God that he is happy for time and eter- nity, but if he misses heaven that he will be miserable forever. Then the man is unwise and makes a great mistake who misses heaven. I can find no words to explain or express the awful loss and misery that shall come on the soul who 66 Seek First the Kingdom of God fails to enter heaven. It is awful to think of the sinner dying unpardoned and being driven far away from the presence of the Lord and from His glory into everlasting punishment. As one great divine describes the great loss of the soul that fails to enter the home of the redeemed: "In saying that the soul that goes to hell brings upon himself more misery and suffering than all the w r orld has endured up to this hour. Yet the amount of actual misery this world has experi- enced has been very great. Suppose you could ascend up into the heavens, high enough to look over a whole continent and take in at a glance all its miseries, see all forms of human woe, such as the slavery of the nation's intemperance, war, lust, disease, or could you look over some battle-field, and hear, as in one ascending volume, all its groans and curses, and take the dimen- sions of its unutterable woes. As you could hear the awful groans as they rolled up to heaven, you would indeed say there was an ocean of agony in this old world of ours. Yet this is but a drop in the great ocean compared to the suffer- ing and loss the sinner must endure who after all misses heaven." If you. were to see the train rush over a few men, grinding their limbs and flesh into a jelly, Seek First the Kingdom of God 67 you could not bear the sight, you might faint. But what if you could see and hear all the ago- nies of earth brought together, and hear the dreadful groans ascending in one great roar that would shake the very earth? Oh, how your nerves would quiver! Yet this is nothing com- pared with the eternal suffering of one lost soul. The soul that misses heaven will suffer more than all earth and all the millions in the fires of hell have ever suffered up till now, because the suf- fering of earth and hell has had an end up till this present time. But the soul that dies out of Christ, and driven into the fires of hell, his suf- fering will never have an end. Then is it not important for the soul to first seek the King- dom of God ? Now let us look a little at what a man gains by being saved in the Kingdom of God. He gets into the possession of more hap- piness than all the families of earth have enjoyed from Adam down to this present hour, because this happiness has had an end, but the man re- deemed through the blood of Christ, his happi- ness shall never end. So more than earth's hap- piness is in store for him, as he is in possession of more happiness than the saints of heaven have had up till now, as theirs have had an end, but the saved man's happiness has no end. 68 Seek First the Kingdom of God j Let us use an illustration, something like this, to get a little idea of some length of the happiness of the saved: Suppose each drop of water that has ever fallen on this earth to rep- resent ten thousand years of celestial joy, each snowflake that has ever fallen on the earth rep- resent ten thousand years of celestial joy, and each leaf of the forest ten thousand years of celestial joy; now, let them go by a drop of water every ten thousand years, then a snow- flake every ten thousand years, then a leaf of the forest every ten thousand years. Oh! just think of the length of time, and then the saved soul would only be in the bloom and springtime of eternity with his God in a world where it is one eternal noon. Now, it is a very important question than about a man seeking the Kingdom of God for the gain he makes in eternity. Yet the text tells us of a gain in this life. Let us see the Scriptures on this subject: "And every one that hath forsaken homes, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life/' Matthew xix, 29. "But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall Seek First the Kingdom of God 69 reap bountifully." 2 Corinthians ix, 6. Now, we see from the Word of God, as we forsake all for the glory of God and the good of others, that God gives us all things. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things." Romans viii, 32. The more liberal we are in making sacrifices for the good and happiness of others, the more the Lord puts into our hands. That is why He gave so much of this world's goods to Moody, Spurgeon, and Miiller, because they used it for the good of others. Just to think of a man in a lifetime getting something like one hundred million, as Miiller did, and used it for the bene- fit of poor orphans. God knows which of His children will make good stewards in His King- dom, so He gives large sums of money to those who will use it well for the good of others. Now to show that God does take care of those who look after the good of others : Some years ago, in a prayer-meeting up in Massachusetts, I heard a man one night praying, and said in his prayer, "Oh! Lord, if I can be more useful by having stones thrown on me as on Stephen, Lord, let them come." The next day I met him, I said, "Shevere, did you mean what you said in your 70 Seek First the Kingdom of God prayer last night ?" He then told me of his con- version, said he was employed in a store in New York at a salary of about one hundred dollars a month, but after he was saved he then had con- victions to go out on the streets to preach, and did so for three weeks' time. During that time he said he only got fifteen cents and was often stoned by the police. One evening as he was coming home out of heart and thinking to him- self, "Is God going to let me starve at His work?" Just as he came near his home he saw a man rolling a barrel of flour in at his door. He said to the man that he was at the wrong place with his barrel, that it should go into the store beneath. The man said, "I know what I am doing, this barrel of flour is for Shevere." Then he said to me, "I have not been afraid of the Lord taking care of me from that day till this time." Told me that since that time he had received, in gifts from the people in the large cities, as much as one hundred dollars a day for preaching the gospel of Christ. He gave up a salary of one hundred a month, and afterward the Lord would give him that much for one day. Thousands of God's backslidden children think, "I would like to get one hundred dollars a day," but how would you like three weeks' work and Seek First the Kingdom of God W 71 only fifteen cents, and stones thrown on you by police? You would soon say, "Lord deliver me from that kind of pay." To show again how God rewards those who take care of others : Years ago, in England, there was a poor widow woman with two chil- dren who made her living by keeping a light- house on the seacoast. As visitors came she would show them through the lighthouse, and as they went away, give her small sums of money such as nickels and dimes of our money. So she got a very small sum of money each day, by which she made a very scant living for herself and children. One Lord's day she heard a min- ister preach about mission work and how we ought to give to support this work. The poor woman got awfully troubled about what she ought to do in that line of work, so at last she said she would give all she got on Monday to this work. Monday as she went back to her work at the lighthouse a gentleman came, she took him around through the lighthouse, show- ing him all she could along the seacoast. As he went away, he gave her five dollars. She then did not know what to do, as she had never gotten so much for a day's work before in her life. Now, she went to her neighbors and asked 72 Seek First the Kingdom of God them. They told her to give a few shillings to the mission cause and take the rest to buy clothes for her children. But that night she was troubled and went to the Lord in prayer about the money, what to do with it, so she got the same convictions as before to give it all to the Lord. Next day she went back again, that day a woman and a little girl came, she took the same care in showing them around, as they left the little girl gave her a hundred-dollar note. That little girl became Queen Victoria, that died in London, where the rich paid one thousand dollars for a window to see the funeral proces- sion as it passed through the streets. I know that God will take care of His peo- ple, from my own experience, as well as that of others, and from His word. When we were living in California, in 1894, when, through the long illness of my wife and child, I had gotten out of means of support, one night I went to attend service at the Presbyterian Church, that night the minister said there was to be a collec- tion taken up for the support of broken-down ministers in the State. Well, I thought to my- self, if any in the State in a harder place than myself they ought to have help from somewhere. As the baskets started around, I had but thirty Seek First the Kingdom of God 73 cents, all the money I had in the world, I said to myself, "God does not want my thirty cents, I will pray for them, that is all I can do for them." But just at that time the thought came to me as if I heard some one speak, saying, "Throw in part of your money and see if the Lord can not do something for you." So I did, and the next morning I started down the street, not having money enough to buy a roast of beef. As I went along the street, thinking how I was to care for my sick wife and little boy, the tears would come in my eyes as I walked the streets. When I came to the post-office I received a letter from Judge Johnson, of Bluefield, West Vir- ginia, and Mr. Straley, of Princeton, West Vir- ginia, with a check for twenty-five dollars, say- ing, "When you need help, let us know." I then went back in great haste to tell my wife, as I showed her the check she said, "We ought never be afraid to trust the Lord." In a few days my physician told me I would have to take my wife and go up on the side of the Rocky Mountains, above the fog line, if I wished her to get better. We then went to a little town on the side of the mountain by the name of Penran, California. In a few days after we had gotten there we ate breakfast and had but one dime left 74 Seek First the Kingdom of God toward preparing for the next meal. I started down the street again, with my head down, thinking this looks very dark, just at that time a man called to me across the street, saying, "I have some money for you." I went back again in great haste to tell how the Lord was providing for us among strangers. So the Lord will provide for His children. In Moody and Spurgeon's book on prayer there is a wonderful example of this kind. There was a man in Pennsylvania by the name of Brown. One night he awoke about three o'clock in the morning, telling his wife there was a child of God somewhere starving and he could not tell where he was, she told him just to keep on talking with the Lord and the Spirit would tell him. About four o'clock he woke his wife and told her that it was a man about fifteen miles from there at a little house on the top of the mountain, where they* had passed in the summer. Then he looked out at the window, saw the snow had fallen about one foot deep. They got breakfast and put provisions in the sleigh, and he drove as fast as he could and got to the place about noon. As he came near the cabin he heard the man praying and asking God to put it into the heart of some child of God to Seek First the Kingdom of God 75 send him something to eat. Brown opened the door, asked him how long he had been without anything to eat. He said three days, so ferown told him that God woke him up in the night and told him, by conviction of the Spirit, where he was, and that he needed help. This is just as much of a miracle as Elijah being fed by a raven. Bless God, we still have the God of Abraham, Moses, and Elijah, and can still say, as David, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pas- tures ; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me ; Thy rod and staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies ; Thou anointest my head with oil ; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. " ail (Boob to tbe Christian. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." Romans viii, 28. In old times there was a stone, called the philosopher's stone, believed to be somewhere in the world, and it is said that learned men, but not very wise men, thought this stone had power to turn everything into gold that it touched. Now, suppose this to be true and that we had this stone. What a time we would have getting money, just to touch the rocks and hills and they would turn to gold. What would we care for the gold of California, or Alaska, or the silver mines of Africa? We would care nothing for all the gold and silver of the world. When we could turn everything around us into gold. How rich any one would be that had this stone in their possession. But the child of God is much richer than the man who was in possession of such a stone as that. The child of God has something which turns everything to good in- stead of gold, so that is much better. Too much gold has ruined thousands of men, soul and WILEY WINTON SMITH, 1907 Jr. All Good to the Christian 77 body, and too much might destroy all of our happiness instead of making us happy. The love of money this day is the great rock in the sea of life, upon which many a vessel has been wrecked and destroyed forever. Now, it is much better to have everything in our path in life turn to our good than turn to gold. Even the trials and afflictions that come to us, God will turn them to our good. For He has said in the text: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God." There are offices these days called insurance offices, such as fire, life and marine insurance. So if you had your home insured you would not have it insured to keep it from taking fire, but if it took fire, to get paid for the loss when it would burn. Those who insure our property do not keep it from burning, but only pay for it when it burns. When a man pays a certain sum of money to have his life insured, this does not prevent him from sickness or death, but if he dies his family gets so much money at his death. Just as the man who has his vessel and cargo insured when he sets sail at sea. This does not mean that the insurance will prevent any storm from overtaking the ship by which it may be destroyed. The vessel may spring a leak, or be 78 All Good to the Christian f wrecked, or lost at sea. But the insurance means that if the vessel is lost or wrecked at sea it will pay the loss. Something of the same thing takes place when we become Christians. The Lord keeps a general insurance office for His children. He insures them against harm and . loss. By this insurance He does not prevent them from ever getting sick or having any trouble, but when these things come He turns them for our good and makes them a blessing to us. Just like when Joseph was thrown into the pit and sold by his brethren to the Ishmael- ites. Now, Joseph's brethren intended to do him harm, but God turned the whole affair for the good of Joseph and afterwards for the good also of his mean brethren. As the years of famine came on Joseph sent provision from Egypt to his father and brethren. So we see old Jacob made a big mistake when he said that his son Joseph was dead and all things were against him. Joseph was alive and God was working him for the good of his father, Jacob. But Jacob did not see nor know what God was doing, it was all in the dark to him. One reason why we find it so hard to believe when trouble comes upon us that it is for our good, is because we can not see the end nor All Good to the Christian 79 understand how it will turn out for our good. But when we see the end as Jacob did, then we see it was for our good and a great blessing to us. Like an old pious Jew who lived among people that made fun of him for being so re- ligious. At last he determined to leave the neighborhood in which he lived. But before he started on his journey, he bought him a lamp by which he could read his precious Bible. Then he got him a rooster to crow to wake him up early in the morning so he could read his Bible. He also got him a donkey on which to ride and carry his things. Then he started on his way. One evening, growing late as he came up to a little village, there was no hotel and the people would not keep him, so he thought he would stop at the first woods as he went on, saying to himself, it was mighty hard a man could get no place for shelter. But God is good, and works all things for good to them that love Him. As he got into the woods, hitched his donkey, lit his lamp, began reading his precious Bible, soon it began raining and the wind blew T out his lamp and continued blowing so hard he could not light his lamp any more. "What a pity," he said, "I can not read my Bible, but all for the best, God is good." Then he thought he would 80 All Good to the Christian lie down and go to sleep. Just about the time he was going to sleep a wolf came and caught his rooster and made a meal of him. Then he said, "I am so sorry for my new loss, my com- panion is now gone, no rooster to wake me early to read my Bible. But all for the best." But no sooner had he uttered these words than he was frightened and alarmed by the roar of a lion that in a few moments devoured his donkey. He then said, "This is the greatest loss of all. What shall I do now? My lamp gone out, my rooster and my donkey all gone. But all for the best, God works all for good to them that love Him." He then spent the rest of the night a little restless. The next morning he went to the little village to buy him a donkey on which to carry his things, but when he got there to his surprise all in the little village were dead. It seemed that during the night a band of robbers had entered the place and killed the inhabitants and robbed their houses. So he was surprised at the wonderful care God had taken of him, as soon as he had recovered a little from the surprise he lifted his voice and said, "Oh! God, thou God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, how wonderful Thou art. Now I know and see how blind and ignorant we poor mortals are to look All Good to the Christian 81 on those things as evils which are sent for our good. If those hard-hearted people had not driven me away from the village I should have perished with them. If my lamp had not gone out the robbers would have seen it and killed me. If the wolf had not eaten my rooster, he might have crowed, or my donkey, if alive, might have been braying and the robbers heard and killed me." This is the way God turns what we think evils into things that work for our good. On account of our blindness and lack of faith in God's management we have had to suf- fer much pain, and have had many dark hours along the path of life. Sometimes sickness, trial or disappointment is the very best thing that can happen to a person. When God sees that this is the case He will let that sickness or trouble come, but when it comes He watches over it carefully and directs it in such a way that it will only do good to the person to whom it is sent. To illustrate this, take a large lump of golden ore that was found in California, in 1895, which was worth about one hundred thousand dollars. Take a large lump like this, look at it and see the gold shining and glittering, but here and there earth and rocks you can see in the lump. It is worth a 82 All Good to the Christian large sum of money, but not fit for use with all this earth and rock mixed with the gold. Now before it can be used the gold must be separated from the earth and rock. To do this the lump of ore must be broken into pieces, put into a furnace of great heat until the gold melts and runs out, leaving the earth and rock. Now, you see it took hard blows, and a hot furnace to separate the gold from the earth and make the gold fit for use. So God's people are like the ore in the lump they have so many sins remain- ing about them that the trials and afflictions which God permits to come upon them in this life are the hammers by which He breaks them in pieces and the furnaces by which He melts and purifies them and makes them fit for His service. Like David said : "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes. I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right and that Thou, in faithfulness, hast afflicted me." It is said that one day when George Whit- field was preaching from the text, "Wherefore glorify ye God in the fires," he said, "Some years ago I was at Shields and w r ent to a glass works, and saw a w r orkman take a piece of glass and put All Good to the Christian 83 it into three furnaces in succession. And I asked him, "Why do you put it into so many fires?" He answered, "Oh! sir, the first was not hot enough nor the second, and therefore we put it into the third. Heat will make the glass transparent/ ' Oh, thought I, does this man put the glass into one furnace after another that it may be made more transparent. Then O, my God, put me into one furnace after another that my soul may become more transparent. So like Whitfield, we ought to be willing at any time to go into the fire if it makes us more useful in God's service. Too many of God's people these days are looking for ease and comfort instead of the fires like Whitfield. So few people today are willing to suffer or make any great sacrifice for the glory of God and that is why they know so little of His ways and so much of their life is spent in darkness. Charles Finney, one of the greatest preachers that ever lived, said when his wife died that he felt like murmuring at first, and could not under- stand why God had taken his wife away from him. Then he thought, "Did I want her to live here to make me happy, or did I want her to live for her happiness? If I wanted her to stay for my happiness then that was only selfishness, but 84 All Good to the Christian if I wished to live for her happiness, which I did, then she was far happier in heaven than I could make her in my earthly home, so I did not want her back in this world of sin and death." That is why we should not want any of our loved ones back who have gone to heaven, because they are so much happier there than on earth with us. We make many mistakes when we look at our own interest instead of looking at the good of others. Some years ago, in Floyd County, Virginia, I met a man by the name of Wells. As we sat at the supper table that night he told me about the death of one of his children, said his daughter, about sixteen years of age, who was such a good Christian that everybody in the neighborhood seemed to love her. So one evening she was building a fire in the stove to get supper, and after she had a little fire in the stove then she took up the oil can again pour- ing on more oil until the oil flew up in a flame and set her clothes all on fire. She ran into the house and they did all they could to extinguish the flames but could not, she died in one hour from the time she was burned. They said when she was dying she sang sweetly almost to the last breath. As the father and mother sat at the All Good to the Christian 85 table and talked about the death of their dear daughter, the tears ran down their cheeks. Then Mr. Wells said to me, "Brother Smith, I can not understand why she took up the oil can a second time when she was always so careful about everything she did.'' I said, "Mr. Wells, I do not know but I may understand it. How were you living before her death?" "Not right," he said. "How are you now living?" I asked him. His answer was, "Willing to do anything God reveals to me." To show what love he had for Christ and His cause, Mr. Wells wanted a church built in the neighborhood near his home. He was a man of but little means, but he gave three hundred dollars, almost all the means he had, and then said, "If that is not enough, take my horse and sell him." They said, "Mr. Wells, you are excited." He said, "I would rather be excited than for some of my children to be lost." We had all better be excited than for loved ones about us to be lost. But how often we must pass through the fire, like the Hebrew children, to see and know more of God. As Spurgeon said, "Our afflictions are like weights, and have a tendency to bow us to the dust, but there is a way of arranging weights, by means of w r heels and pulleys, so that S6 All Good to the Christian they will even lift us up. Grace, by its matchless art has often turned the heaviest of our trials into occasions for heavenly joy. We glory in tribulations also." We gather honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock. As God takes those dear to us in our earthly homes up to our Father's home in glory, it should make us think less of earth and more of heaven. Then we should think of those gone from our earthly home as bright stars shining in the far off world to beckon us towards heaven. When we climb the bright hills of the heavenly world and look back at old earth, with its strangely mingled joys and sorrows, we will then praise God for all His dealings with us and know more of His wisdom and goodness. Cbrist Is IRtsen. "He is risen." Matthew xxviii, 6. These words are written upon the tomb of our departed friends in letters of living light. These three words make the rainbow that will hang over the grave of our loved ones until the resurrection morn. What good news and glad tidings the angels have brought from heaven to earth. At the nativity of Christ the angels were seen flying through the eastern sky, singing, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men, today is born, in the city of David, the Saviour which is Christ the Lord." And here they come again, bringing three of the sweetest words that were ever borne by angels to this dark world of ours. The words which make hundreds of heart-strings vibrate with their sweetest melody. Oh! how dark the grave would be to us when we leave our friends and relatives there, if there were no resurrection from the dead. Without the Bible we could never have real- ized the beauty of these three words which will shine so brightly through all time and eternity. 88 Christ Is Risen Nature, philosophy, science and art are all silent on this great and important theme. Go ask the blooming meadows, verdant fields, the sparkling stream, purple mountain, roaring ocean, shining stars and the burning sun, where is the Saviour that was crucified on the cross, and you are answered only by the echo. From nature and science we must turn to the Bible, and there we find our doubts removed and life and immortal- ity brought to light. If we were to read the Bible from the first to the last page and find all through the book that the Son of God left heaven and was seen on earth by thousands, performing miracles, and at last was seen hanging on the cross, but nowhere could we find that He rose from the grave, how dark the future would be to us, when we tell our friends good-bye at death, no ray of light telling us that they were to live beyond the grave and that we could meet them again. From this we can imagine some- thing of the sadness of the disciples after Christ was left hanging on the cross. This was the darkest time to the world since the closing of the gates of Eden. The shepherd was now smitten and the flock scattered. The scriptures tell us that the disci- ples mourned and wept. If you had been in Christ Is Risen Jerusalem at the time of the death of Christ no doubt but you would have heard the disciples as they stood on the corner of some street, and talking in a low tone and saying this Man we loved and in whom we put our trust, yet for some unknown reason in the last hour of His suffering He failed and God has forsaken Him. And now our hopes of the future are all gone, and the world, to all human appearance, is like an orphan ; and thus they talk and weep until the sunlight begins to fade from the distant sum- mit of the mountain of Moab. In the twilight are seen the two Marys sitting there by the closed and silent grave, with bleed- ing and aching hearts. As the dark night falls over the guilty city, you can see the two Marys and the disciples going back toward Jerusalem as if loath to leave the place where their Lord lay. As they went they could see nothing before them but the dark night and the unopened grave. They must have felt as if their souls were in the very valley and shadow of death without the comforting rod and supporting staff of the shep- herd. What a dark night of unbelief was then hanging over their minds, as they did not under- stand His resurrection. But could they have seen and understood the 90 Christ Is Risen light that was to soon come out of darkness, the life that was to come out of death and the joy that was to come out of that deep agony, their souls would have been singing like the bird at the rising sun. Bless God, that dark night did not last always. See the morning light gleaming along the eastern sky and the two Marys are going toward the tomb of the Saviour and saying, "Who shall roll us away the stone?" When they come near they see an angel. "His countenance was like lightning and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead ; and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee ; there shall ye see Him ; lo, I have told you. And they departed quickly from the sepulchre, with fear and great joy, and did run to bring His disciples word." Matthew xxviii. For almost two thousand years men and women have been running with the good news that Christ has risen from the tomb. What good news to a lost and ruined world. Christ Is Risen 91 Before Christ rose we only had light on one side, but as He went through the old cavern He let light in from the heavenly side. And now we can walk through the valley of death with the light of heaven on us all the way. What light and glory burst upon the world the morn- ing the Saviour rose from the grave ! What mighty magic power there is in the resurrection ! Around it gathers all the light of the Old Tes- tament economy. It explains every symbol, it substantiates every shadow, it solves every mys- tery, it fulfils every prophecy of that dispen- sation which would have remained eternally unmeaning had it not been for the resurrection of our Lord. Nowhere is the Divine character so presented as in the resurrection of Christ, there the cloud veil is withdrawn,there the Divine portrait is uncovered and we learn and see Him as nowhere else. The past is not only illumi- nated by the resurrection, but the future also. It assures us of the ultimate reign of the Saviour. It tells us of the rewards that will spring out of His death and resurrection. With one arm it points to the Divine Council of the eter- nity past, with the other to the eternity to come. And yet, knowing that Christ has risen from the dead, would be no comfort to us if we could 92 Christ Is Risen not find anywhere in the scriptures that we were to be raised from the dead, but we find in Romans : "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. ,, "Now, if we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall also live with Him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him." "Because I live ye shall live also." If it were not for a life beyond the grave how sad to think of dying and leaving our friends forever. That the old world upon which I have walked and the friends with whom I have talked, that I must leave them never to meet again, and that the world will go on just like it did while I was living. That the little stream upon whose bank I sat and played, when a child, and listened to it as it went sing- ing by toward its ocean home. That stream will murmur by in its channel just as sweetly when I am dead as it did when I sat on its bank. The sun will rise and set just as brightly as it did when I watched the last rays that lingered on the highest mountain peak. The stars will shine out on my lone grave at midnight as they have on the graves of the millions in the past. But thank God those of us who believe on Christ Is Risen 93 Christ will outlive the stream, the mountain and the stars. When an angel will be seen descend- ing the heavens to the earth with his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth and swear by the judge of the quick and the dead that time shall be no more. Then the old moun- tains will melt down, the sun will be blown out and the moon turn to blood. But when the old earth is gone and the sun stricken from his throne for millions of years, we will then be singing on in glory with Christ, saints and angels. This world will be but a morning dream compared with our life which shall stretch on into the great eternity. You have lost some of your friends, and you have gone and planted flowers upon their graves, you go and sit at eventide upon the green sward, bedewing the grass with your tears until the long shades of evening creep over the earth and the stars begin to peep out in the heavens, and there at the grave you linger and think, "Shall I ever see them again?" Yes there is a glori- ous waking time of the dead coming on, when the shadows of night and death shall forever flee away and we shall meet our loved ones never to part again. Sowino anfc IReaping* "And let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Galations vi, 9. "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith/ ' Let us sow good seed and some day a rich harvest will ripen. Nearly half a century ago, before the time of railways, when people traveled in stage coaches, a coach used to run daily between Glasgow and Greenoch in Scotland. One afternoon, as this coach was going by a place called Bishop ton, a lady in the coach saw a little boy walking bare- footed along the road. He seemed tired and suffering with his feet. She asked the driver to take him up and give him a seat and she would pay for it. When they arrived at the inn in Greenoch she inquired of the boy to know what had brought him there. He said he wished to "be a sailor and hoped some of the captains would take him as a cabin boy. The lady gave him half a crown and spoke some kind words to him wishing him success and charging him not to Sowing and Reaping 95 learn to swear or drink. Twenty years went by. The coach was returning to Glasgow one after- noon on the same road. Among the passengers in the stage was a sea captain and when they came near Bishopton the very spot where the kind lady took up the little boy, the captain saw an old lady on the road walking slowly and look- ing very tired and weary. He asked the coach- man to take her in the coach as there was an empty seat and he would pay the fare. Soon after that they stopped to change horses all the passengers got out except the sea captain and the old lady. The lady thanked the captain for his kindness toward her as she was not able to pay for the seat. He said he always felt bound to help weary travelers whenever he could, be- cause w r hen he was a boy, twenty years ago, near this very place a kind-hearted lady ordered the coachman to take him up and paid for his seat. "Ah!" said the lady, "I remember that day very well. I am the lady, sir, but my lot in life has changed. Then I was well off, but now I am left poor through the bad conduct of my intemperate son." "Oh! I am so glad to meet you again, my good friend," said the cap- tain, shaking her warmly by the hand. "I have been very successful in business and am going 96 Sowing and Reaping home to live on my fortune, and from this day I shall pay you one hundred dollars a year as long as you live." See how this lady was re- warded in her old days for her kind acts toward others in her youth. Be not weary in well-doing and many years afterward comes the harvest. I well remember the first time in my life that I confessed Christ before the public was at a camp-meeting in Wythe County, Virginia, when I was about six- teen years of age. It was on the Lord's day, and I sat at the back of the shed, when I heard many about the front and around the altar tell- ing what the Lord had done for them, I sat and listened till I could wait no longer. As I arose and told the audience how, by the death of my little sister, I had been brought to trust Christ. As I told of my conversion I heard groans and saw the tears running down the cheeks of many. Twenty-five years after that, as I was preaching under my tent at Wytheville, Virginia, when an old man came up to the stage and said, "Brother Smith, do you know me?" I said, "I do not." He then said, "I was converted twenty-five years ago at the camp-ground that Sunday afternoon while you were telling how you were saved." A few days after that I was preaching Sowing and Reapin gX ¥* F* r 97 at Saltville, Virginia, when another man came forward and told me that he was converted at the same time. Well, I thought, if that is the way the Lord saved men from the first time I confessed Him in the public, I will go on telling what He did for me on the cross till my last sun shall set and I awake in glory. May the Lord help us to tell, every oppor- tunity we have, what Christ has done for us, that it may bring others to Him. When I was in college at Salem, Virginia, in 1882, I took fever when many died at Roanoke and Salem. Dr. Wiley thought my case hopeless. An old colored man waited on me in the daytime and an Indian at night. One Sunday, when a little cold, the colored man, Uncle Jack, as we called him, went out and began cutting wood, I tapped against the window pane with my fingers, Uncle Jack came in and asked, "What do you want, Mr. Smith ?" I said, "I would rather be cold than to hear the ring of an ax on Sunday." Uncle Jack said, "You are a strange kind of a man/' and went out. So I got well and went home. Sixteen years after that I stopped over to wait for a train at Salem going west, I thought I would go up to the college and look over the grounds and see what changes in six- 98 Sowing and Reaping teen years. After looking through the campus a while, I then went into the room in the college where I had been expected to die, there I prayed and thanked the Lord for the strength of body and mind which He had given me for sixteen years, through which time I had preached almost all over the continent, and had seen thousands yield to the blessed Christ. As I came out off the campus into the street, some old colored man came up to me and said, "Is this Mr. Smith?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Do you know me?" I said, "No." Then he told me that he was Uncle Jack, and how my tapping against the window-pane that Sunday had troubled him for years. Said he would wake up in the dead hours of the night and hear me tap against the window and say, "Do not cut any wood on Sunday." Till one night he awoke and said to himself, "Will this trouble me till my dying day?" And there and then, he told me, in that hour of the lone night, he gave all to Christ and said, "If I am a colored man I will meet you, Brother Smith, in heaven." Sow ye beside all waters; Where the dew of heaven may fall, Ye shall reap if ye be not weary, For the spirit breathes over all. Sowing and Reaping 99 Sow, though the thorns may wound thee. One wore the thorns for thee ; And though the cold world scorn thee, Patient and hopeful be. Sow ye beside all waters, With a blessing and a prayer, Name Him whose hand upholds us, And sow thou everywhere. When we think what Christ has done for us on the cross we ought to work faithfully till the last sun has gone down on us. We ought to be like Whitefield, preaching the last night he was on the earth. As Rev. Parsons, in whose house at Newbury Port he died, relates the fol- lowing touching scene which he witnessed : "While at supper, the pavement in front of the house, and even the hall were crowded with peo- ple impatient to hear a few words from his elo- quent lips, but he was exhausted, and, rising from the table, said to one of the clergymen who were with him, 'Brother, you must speak to these dear people, I can not say a word/ Taking a candle, he hastened toward his bedroom, but before reaching it he was arrested by the sug- gestion of his own generous heart, that he ought not thus to desert the anxious crowd hungering for the bread of life from his hands. He paused LOFC. Sowing and Reaping on the stairs to address them. He had preached his last sermon and this was to be his last exhor- tation. He lingered on the stairway, while the crowd gazed up at him with tearful eyes. His voice, never, perhaps, surpassed in its music and pathos, flowed on until the candle which he held in his hand burned away and went out in its socket. After making this last talk he went to his room and slept quietly till about two in the morning, when he awoke his traveling attend- ant and told him that his asthma was coming on again. His companion recommended him not to preach so often as he had done. 'I would rather wear out than rust out/ was his reply. He had expressed, not long before at Princeton, a wish to die suddenly rather than by a linger- ing illness. He now realized the wish. He sat up for some time in his bed praying that God would bless his preaching, his Bethesda School, the Tabernacle congregation, and all his connec- tions on the other side of the water. He at- tempted to sleep again but could not, and soon after, hastening to the open window, panting for breath, he exclaimed, 'I am dying !' A physician was summoned, but could give no relief. At six in the morning of September 30, 1770, as the Sabbath sun was beginning to lighten the eastern sky, his soul departed." Sowing and Reaping This is the way to make the last day count this side of eternity. It is delightful to do work by which we will be rewarded in the sweet eter- nity when this old world is gone. For more than twenty years I have averaged over a sermon a day, sowing the precious seed of God's truth over some forty states. During this time, I have preached in churches, on trains, in steamers, on the streets, in the woods, in banks, in stores, and in barrooms, and almost everywhere that men live. In this time I have seen men trust Christ from the poorest hard-working men up to the rich banker. I went to Princeton, West Virginia, I think in 1890, to hold a revival service. As the meeting had been going on a few days, and I was going from one place to another holding prayer, I went into Judge Johnson's office and had prayer, as I went out Mr. Straley, a banker, said, "That is the first preacher that ever prayed in a law office in Princeton, so I will go and hear him preach." He did come to the meetings, and was saved and became a great blessing to others the rest of his life. He gave five or six thousand dollars to the Orphans' Home at Salem, Vir- ginia, and hundreds to poor preachers and other causes, and has now gone home to glory to re- ceive his reward. May God bless the readers 102 Sowing and Reaping of these sermons that they may be faithful in sowing good seed in every path of life; that when life, with its toils and cares are over, they may mount up from this sin-cursed earth, pass- ing away by the fading stars, through the gates of the Celestial City, greeted by the harps and hosts of heaven as they pass along the golden streets and over the bright plains of eternal glory, saying, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are at home with Jesus and the saints to wear a white robe and a bright crown, where no more sorrow, death, nor sad farewells will ever come." < z X > LI o z < o or Li D Z LJ > < Z o tn tc LJ I- I- < QL 1bell. "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." Psalm ix, 17. There must be a hell as well as a heaven, because the good and bad of earth must be sep- arated or we could have no heaven. If the bar- keeper should go to heaven in the state of mind that he has here he would wish to sell whiskey as soon as he got there. And the gambler would start a gambling den as soon as "he would enter heaven. So the man who loves money more than he loves Christ would begin to dig up the gold-paved streets to have it coined into money, and some other man in heaven who had a still greater love for money than the one digging up the gold would kill the other man for his gold before he got to the mint to have it coined. Now, this kind of men would turn a heaven into a hell. Then all that hate Christ and hate all that is good and pure must be shut out of heaven to make that a good place. So the wicked and all the nations that forget God must be cast into hell, the same as we put wicked murderers and thieves in prison here to keep the better class of people from being in danger all the time. 104 Hell There are some ministers who never mention anything about hell, so you would never know from their preaching there was any such a place. I once read of a minister who said to his congre- gation, "If you do not love the Lord Jesus Christ you will be sent to that place which it is not polite to mention/' This kind of preachers would get men, if they could, to go down to hell and put dynamite under the place and blow it into atoms, or send in a petition to God, asking Him to shut the old place up, that this enlightened age had no use for such a place as hell. These ministers who are too nice to say hell in the pulpit, if they were in heaven, as they are down here, heaven w r ould not be good enough for them, and they would be telling God how to make an improvement on things in that world. This class of men make me think of the old Irishman who wanted to show his friend that he could beat God in making a world. As he and his friend were lying in the shade of a large oak tree one hot summer day, near by a fine, flourishing pumpkin-vine was trailing on the ground. He looked at the nice, large pumpkins growing on the vine and then said to his friend, "What a great mistake it was to put those mis- erable little acorns upon a fine tree like this and Hell 105 leave these noble-looking pumpkins down here in the dirt and dust. If I had the making* of these things I would have arranged them differ- ent, I would have put the acorns down on the ground and the fine pumpkins up on the tree/' Just about the time he said this, a breeze of wind swept through the tree and shook off sev- eral acorns, one of these hit the wise man on the head. "Ah!" said he, putting his hand to his head, "thank God it was not a pumpkin.'' If the pumpkin had been as large as I have seen them in California, and one should fall on a man's head, he would think he was thunder- struck if he had mind enough to think anything. Now, all men who want to change the Bible and God's way of doing things will show their wis- dom like the Irishman. People often ask me what kind of a place is hell. Now, let the Bible answer and see what it says about the place: "But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and brimstone; which is the second death." Revelation xxi, 8. "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than, 106 Hell having two hands, to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." Mark ix, 43. "But the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth/' Matthew viii, 12. "Because Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption." Acts ii, 2.7. The Bible is a common-sense book and puts things to men in a common-sense way. Hell is not a real place of fire, nor a place of outer darkness, nor where the worm dieth not, nor as a grave, it could not be all these things and all these kinds of places. God has put hell in the Bible, to the human mind illustrated by external objects, so the mind can get some idea of the awful suffering of a soul driven away from God and all that is good forever. Take the thought of outer darkness : suppose you should go from your home some night to church as the audience is dismissed you return, as you think, to your home, but when you get to the place where your home was, no home there, and you can find no one anywhere, what dreadful feelings would come over you. Now think you would continue for hours, hunting and crying out at the top of your voice and could find no Hell 107 one of your family nor any one else, could not even hear the crow of a chicken or the bark of a dog, and after a while you strike a match and find the time since you left the church has been so long that the sun ought to be two or three hours high. Oh ! what agony of mind. "Will I never find any one, and the sun never rise, and am I to go walking and stumbling and fall- ing into rivers and ditches over the earth in this awful darkness forever alone ?" Think of some one screaming and hunting for some person in such darkness as this a thousand years and still find no one, and to go on still alone in such darkness as this forever! Do you want any worse hell than one of that kind? I should never want to go to a hell of outer darkness. Then the Bible tells us of a hell as a lake of fire. I looked at the lakes of hot and boiling water among the geysers in Yellowstone Park, some that looked red like lakes of boiling fire, and I thought how awful to be cast into a lake like that, to remain forever. Then I have looked into these coke ovens in Virginia and West Vir- ginia, where so much coal is coked, and thought to myself, "Where is the mother that could stand on the brink of one of these ovens and see her child groan and scream, amid the lurid flames, 108 Hell for help, and she could not rescue him from the fire?" No mother with a human heart could look at a child in a place like that for a day, or a week, and not lose their mind at see- ing the dreadful suffering of their child and could not get them out of the fire. Then, think of being in a lake of fire forever. The Bible tells us again that the fire in this lake is not quenched and that the smoke ascends forever. Think of some wife, whose husband had died, and after death, cast into a boiling lake from which she could see the smoke rising all the time as she would look out of her win- dow in the morning, see the smoke from the lake also in the evening, as the sun went down, so always morning and evening she could see the smoke and say, "My poor husband is still in the fire." When we were in the Yosemite Valley, no matter where we were, or where we went over the high mountains, or in the valley, we could see the spray overtop the falls that hung high in the heavens like a white cloud, telling where the falls were, also we could hear the dead, heavy roar of the falls all day and any hour you should wake in the lone night. When I looked at that white spray, which always hangs over the falls, and then hear the awful roar that Hell 109 has been going on night and day for hundreds of years, never ceasing, it made me think of the lake of fire in the Bible, where the smoke as- cends forever and ever. Then again, the Bible tells us of a hell like a never-dying worm that eats and gnaws at our life always. How could the President of the United States ever have a happy moment if he had a great serpent eating at his heart night and day, as he sat at the table with his family, how could he eat as he felt the dreadful gnawing of the serpent at his heart? What would all the money in the world be to any one with a serpent eating his life away? No rest nowhere, walking the streets by day, sitting with his family, or at night, hunting for rest. It would be a hell everywhere he went. The last and most awful description of hell in the Bible is that of hell being like the grave. Sometimes, after people bury their relatives, they get troubled and think they were not dead when buried, and go and take them up and find that they did come to life after they were cov- ered up in the grave. Oh! just to think of any one coming to life in their coffin, and could not die but just remain alive in the grave and think of their relatives upon the earth just a few feet above them, but they could get no news no Hell to them, no 'phone from that place to the world just above. Just to think of living in the grave alone forever, what more awful hell than that do you want? These descriptions are in the Bible to give the sinner some idea of the suffering of the soul driven away from God and all that is good. Some may think, "What will the lost do in hell ?" I think they will try to do just what they did here. The drunkard would die loving his dram, and in hell he would want to drink, burning with thirst for his whiskey, and could never get another dram. The man who went to hell for the love of money, will wish to make money, but no way to make any and his love for money increase and make it worse with him as he goes on groaning with the damned in hell forever. So the sins they loved in this world, and would not give them up for Christ and heaven, will eat and gnaw their souls in the other world. When the lost in hell think how they treated Christ and the many sins they committed in this life, it will make the pangs of hell dreadful. The rich man that died "and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and Hell in send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his fin- ger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tor- mented in this flame.' But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that thou, in thy lifetime, receivedst thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they which would pass from hence to you can not, neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." Thousands of rich men, who have died since, are now in hell, thinking how they lived in this life, and how they are now tormented. They would like to have some poor man that they treated as a dog in this life to come down there that they might get a little water from his fin- gers to cool their tongues. But their good time is over and, Oh! how memory will haunt them in hell, as they think of their wicked deeds done in this life. The wicked man who commits some great crime here, such as murder, gets the black deed off his mind by coming in contact with people and other objects in this life, and yet, sometimes the man he killed comes up in memory, at the dead hour of night, until the living man gets such a fright from the ghost that haunts him until he kills himself to get rid of the sight that follows him day and night. ii2 Hell If memory troubles men in this life that way, what will it be in eternity, where nothing but their foul and dreadful sins shall rush on them forever? I will never forget the first night I spent on the seacoast, way in the lone, dead hour of the night, while the city had sunk in stillness to rest, I could hear the wild scream of the steam-boat, and the waves of the ocean lashing against the shore as if to grind the rocks into sand. The noise of the city, during the day kept me from hearing the waves of the ocean lash the shore. So in this life the lost man comes in contact with things here on the earth which make him forget his sins against God and man. But Oh! how they will rush on him in eternity, and he can not get away from them. The bar-keeper will then see the drunkard reel and stagger as he never saw him before, and hear the cry of poor orphan children, with such a dreadful scream as he never heard in this life. How all the wicked deeds of the lost will come in on them in hell, like coals of living fire, scorching and burning their con- science forever. Sinner, what will you think when the last day shall come and you shall hear Christ say, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, I know you not," and then an angel drag Hell 113 you to the brink of the pit and you look over for a moment, before being hurled into the abyss, and there see and hear the screams and groans of the millions of the lost as they gnash their teeth and say, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are lost in this bot- tomless pit forever"? Reader, think, in that world there will be no church bells ringing on the Lord's day, calling sinners to hear the gos- pel and believe on the Christ fof eternal life. No mother there to pray for you and tell you of the sweet heaven to come. Do not go to this world of which I have been writing, there is a world where there is no sin, where Jesus has gone and thousands of saints made white and pure by the blood of the Lamb. Oh! sinner, flee to Christ now and be saved, that your soul may escape the damnation of hell. Ibeaven. "He hath prepared for them a city." He- brews xi, 16. There was a Man who lived in Palestine for more than thirty years, who never did a wrong nor committed a single sin. More than this, He had amazed the eyes of the critical world with a pure holiness. He had kept his garments unspotted from the sins of the wicked world. His life had been such a picture of goodness as they had never dreamed of before. His life had always shone with goodness as the sun with light. When this Man went to leave this world where He had been treated so shamefully as to be nailed to the cross between two thieves, those who had fallen in love with Him and left their nets and all to follow Him, wanted to go with Him when He left this world, so He comforted them with these words : "Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and pre- pare a place for you, I will come again, and re- Heaven 115 ceive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John xiv. After He spoke these comforting words, "He then led them out as far as Bethany and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Luke xxiv, 50- 51. We see again, in Acts, where He left them: "And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld He was taken up ; and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as He went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go- into heaven." Jesus said to them before He left, in His Father's house were many mansions. I am glad that Jesus said many mansions, so this heavenly city is no small place. In the last chapter of the Bible it is described there as being fifteen hun- dred miles in length, fifteen hundred in breadth, and fifteen hundred in height. The children of God have been going into this city for six thou- sand years. And still they are invited to come n6 Heaven from all over the earth, rich and poor, who will come by the way of the cross. Some people say, "How do we know there is a heaven, no one ever came from there ?" How do we know there is such a place as London, because people have gone over there and come back and told us of that city? So the best people that have ever lived on earth have gone up to heaven and come back again to this earth and talked with the peo- ple down here. I have heard ministers say, when some Christian man died, that he had gone whence no one had ever returned. That minis- ter made a big mistake. Enoch walked with God while here on earth, but one day he left this world and went up to heaven to walk with God and the saints there, and as far as I know the Bible he has never been seen back here since he left. Years after Enoch went up to heaven, then Elijah went by a chariot of fire and some- thing like fifteen hundred years go by and we see Elijah back here again on the earth talking with his friends. See in Mark the ninth chap- ter, "And after six days, Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. And His raiment became shining, exceeding white as Heaven 117 snow ; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias, with Moses ; and they were talking with Jesus." We ought to have no fears about going over to heaven after Moses and Elijah go over there and stay over a thousand years and then come back here and talk to their friends as they did with Peter, James, John, and the blessed Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration. Again, Abraham talked out of heaven so that the rich man heard him in hell, John and Stephen saw into the heavenly world before they left this earth, and I think thousands more of God's saints have seen heaven when on their dying beds. What a comfort this should be to the children of God to know that Jesus came down from heaven and that Elijah and Moses came back and Abraham had been heard from since he went there, and many, when leaving the world, tell their friends they can see heaven on the other side. With all these blessed truths we should say with David, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." It is not only our priv- ilege here on the earth to know there is a heaven, but to know that our name is written there. n8 Heaven Once the disciples had been out preaching and met with great success. They had cast out devils and performed miracles and came to Jesus greatly rejoicing. But Jesus said, "Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven/ 1 It is a blessed thought to know while here in this world that we can look far across the hills and mountains of this dark, sin-cursed earth and know our names are written in the beautiful heaven above. Heaven is also the richest home or city that has ever been built. In the last of the Bible we find there this place is built only of gold, pearls and precious stones. The poor houses we build in this world are built of brick, mortar, wood, stone, iron, glass, and other things. But how different with our heavenly home. The founda- tion is built of precious stones, the gates of pearl, the streets of the city made of pure gold. Think of a city whose streets are made of pure gold. If a city on this earth had streets made of gold, the policemen and thieves would be fighting all night over the streets to see which would get the gold. When I was in New York more than twenty years ago, one of the daily papers said there was Heaven ng a gold brick in the street in front of Vanderbilt's door. I said if that were true some policeman would steal it, or kill some one that was trying to get away with it, the first night after the brick was put there. How poor the most splen- did cities or houses become when compared with this heavenly home. It is said that Louis the Fourteenth, the King of France, built a palace at Versailles which cost two hundred million dollars, and yet, what is that compared to the mansion Jesus has prepared for the saints? What a beautiful home God has made for His people ! There are many beautiful things in this world, so beautiful we can not describe, and yet this old world has been all marred and scarred with sin. If you have been to Niagara Falls, you stood and gazed with delight, but when you come away, and some one should ask you to de- scribe the falls or tell them what it was like, you could not do it. You might tell them how high and wide, but how Niagara looks and how you felt while looking at it, you could never tell. When I looked at the falls the first time, such a feeling of awe came over me that I felt I would never try to give any description of the place. I have stood in California and gazed at the snow- I20 Heaven ^^ capped mountains as I could see them stretching along the sky for a hundred miles or more, shin- ing like great masses of silver in the heavens. Then I have seen other mountains along the Pacific coast, clothed with dark green woods and streams of water gushing down their sides, like threads of silver and torrents dashing themselves into foam and spray. Then I have thought, "If this world is so beautiful in places, what will heaven be, where there is no sin?" It is said that Newton, when after years of patient toil, as he was just about to step on the summit of that mountain which no human foot had climbed before, and to catch a glimpse of the unseen glory of that ocean of truth which he alone had reached, felt the depth of his joy so intense that he was overcome and wept. How will it be with us when we climb the heavenly heights and find out those new discoveries of truth and beauty of which we never dreamed in this state of imperfect knowledge? There is something to mar the beauty* of all the brightest things in this world. The brightest sky will have a cloud upon its surface. The sun itself has dark spots upon its face. The most beauti- ful and lovely home on this earth, there death will cast its dark shadow and take away -its vie- Heaven 121 tim. But there will be nothing to mar the beauty of our home in heaven. No storms will ever sweep across the bright sky there, no night will ever come on with its loneliness. It will always be one eternal noon, the sun will never go down. Everything will be beautiful in heaven. "Beautiful Zion built above! Beautiful city that I love ! Beautiful gates of pearly white! Beautiful temple, God its light. "Beautiful trees forever there! Beautiful fruits they always bear ! Beautiful rivers gliding by! Beautiful fountains never dry! "Beautiful light without the sun! Beautiful days revolving on! Beautiful worlds on worlds untold! Beautiful streets of shining gold! "Beautiful heaven where all is light! Beautiful angels clothed in white! Beautiful songs that never tire! Beautiful harps through all the choir! "Beautiful crown on every brow! Beautiful palms the conquerors show! Beautiful robes the ransomed wear! Beautiful all who enter there! "Beautiful throne for God the Lamb! Beautiful seat at God's right hand ! Beautiful rest, all wandering cease! Beautiful home of perfect peace! " 122 Heaven In this beautiful home we shall have good company. We are taught in the Bible that they shall come from the east and west and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. Some people think that in heaven we shall know no one by name. But this Scripture declares here that we shall sit with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob. I once read of a good woman who asked her husband when she was dying, "My dear, do' you think we will know each other when we meet in heaven?" "Why, I have always known you here and do you think we will have less knowl- edge in heaven than here on earth?" I certainly think we will know more in heaven than in this world. I have some dear ones up there and it is a very sweet thought to me that when I am done with this world and have crossed the river of death into glory, that there will come sister and brother to clasp me by the hand and wel- come me into our Father's home. I love to think of my dear relatives in heaven. I often think of them in the lone hours of the night, and during the day on some train as it goes sweep- ing over sparkling streams, through verdant hills and mountains, also as I sit on some old steamer, watching it plow its way through the Heaven 123 waves toward the harbor, where friends are waiting to meet those on the ship. I have thought, "Yes, and when the Old Ship of Zion comes over into glory, loved ones will meet me at the harbor." I will tell here what caused me to take Christ as my Saviour and start for the heavenly home. I had a little sister, Josie, about three years old. Just a few days before she died, she came to my father and climbed into his lap and said, "Father, sing Sweet Home," as he sang she looked up with a smile on her face as if she knew that she was going there in a little time. So in a few days she died. This was the first death in our home out of ten children. O, how sad it made our home! Some of you know how you felt when the first loved one was borne away from your home to sleep among the dead. As we followed her little body to the grave and I heard the ropes being pulled from beneath her coffin it sounded to me like thunder from eter- nity, and as I heard the sobs and crying and saying goodbye, little sister, till we meet in heaven. I then thought I must die as well as sister, and I was not prepared for death. As we went back home and little Josie was not there and never would be again, I was so very sad. 124 Heaven Toward night I went out into the fields to walk, and I watched the sun go down and saw the last rays of light seem to linger on the high moun- tain peaks as if loath to go, and as the dark night came on over our sad home, I sat out in the yard and watched the stars as they came out on the heavens and then I thought, "Little sis- ter is gone somewhere beyond those stars." As we went in the house to prayer that night, as father took the Bible and began to read, as he did this the tears ran down his cheeks and he laid the Bible up and knelt in prayer. While in prayer it came to my mind if I were to die I could not meet sister in heaven for I was not saved. Then I said to myself, "Yes, I will meet her in heaven, for I will now give my life to Christ." That moment I arose and told father and mother I was saved. My next older brother and two sisters at the same time trusted the Lord and said they were going with me to heaven. Since that time my dear brother has gone over to live with sister in that good world. "When in my glorified vision, The walls of that city I see, Dear brother and sister will be at the gate Waiting and watching for me. Heaven 1 2,5 "Oh! joyfully sweet will the meeting be, When over the river, The peaceful river; The angel of death shall carry me." Thank God, by the eye of faith I can see far away in the distance beyond the blue sky, high on the summit of the everlasting hills, a city, the New Jerusalem, all of gold, bathed in light and quivering with glory, its walls of jasper, its foundation of precious stones, its angel-guarded gates of pearl. This city has no need of the sun nor moon, "For the glory of the Lord doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." Dear friends, we have many loved ones who have already crossed the river and are now in heaven. Oh! let us go and spend eternity with them in this beautiful city. APR 19 1907 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 PreservationTechnoIogies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS