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coming of age. We come not into life for the sake of going out of it, but rather to do, and do as much and as long as possible, before we die. Easy births into the world, fruitful lives, and intelligently tranquil births out of the world, are direct results of redemption from the curse pronounced in Genesis. Christian science and the godly physician are direct gifts of rewardful providence, and among the "indirect evidences of Christianity." As far as the world is concerned, a valuable life prolonged is better than two blighted lives. When, therefore, experienced physicians, like Doctors Davis, Jewell, Richardson and Holmes, identify the ordinary causes of premature decay, and instruct men how to modify and measurably thwart those causes, they perform a service second only to the divinity that originally gave life. Such counsellors belong to the grand race of redeemers, at whose head stands the perfect man, the God-Christ. The devout physiologist, whose ministrations enlarge the scope of God's workmen, becomes a direct partner in the workmen's products, and becomes a veritable evangel.

This book illustrates also the grand services of men who by exclusive devotion give their lives to the study of revelation, and who thereby ascertain quite clearly what the Word says respecting the two worlds. They have discovered and located the headlands of all continents, have traced treacherous currents and formulated what revelation teaches concerning the mighty trade-winds of life. When, therefore, the barometer of hope and expectation rises and falls perplexingly; the fleets of solicitous humanity may well gather about these confident pilots, and receive their

"courses and bearings." We do not say that these teachers have made the sea and its dangers, or have placed embargos upon ports of safety, save to privileged mariners. Let all that pass as the lies of men who, for the sake of consciences that long to destroy authority and murder responsibility, cast reproach upon the counsels of men. who have inquired of God. Like all pilots, they study the sea as they find it, and benefit the roving navies who do not know all that which is so familiar to those who study the details of the world's harbors. Moreover, like all human analogies that relate to spiritual things, our analogy must fail, since the beacons that guide were not located by man. Our pilots in this Christian navigation discovered the light-houses that guide and guard the headlands of heaven. Their blessed flash-lights drop into momentary eclipse in order that they may reward and more intensely illumine the eye of him who devoutly seeks guidance and illumination. On all the coasts of the future life there lie not the ribs of a single soul-ship that was wrecked in its honest effort to enter the inlets of heaven.

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Then, too, the testimony -the "testimonials" those who went in with shouts of rejoicing! They are a goodly company, and those we love were enrolled among the heavenly witnesses before they vanished from our longing sight. Paul was inspired to write, but so was Wesley when filled by the same spirit of God. John stood on Patmos, and so did Hooper Crews, who spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost in the lines which have been printed since that saintly writer ascended. It may be that some dying persons speak of visions that have no objective

The concurrent testimony,

reality in their particular cases. however, of the ascending host of redeemed men is proof as solid and actual and convincing as the harmonious verdict of men and angels named in Scripture. The formally untaught habit of savages who reckon in simple digits, and the cultured nations who cypher in millions, alike testify to the fundamental reality and accuracy of the two basal principles in mathematics. The angels of God who speak from above by divine inspiration, and the redeemed toilers of earth who by like inspiration have learned the dialects of heaven, are in the same glorious school, and "speak with one voice" the irrefutable fact that God is with man.

A Christian aging man or woman who is crossing the equator that girts the middle of his century of life, is in the moral autumnal equinox when God, his sun, is directly overhead. That period may be the brightest, lightest, blandest year of his life, to date. As the years thenceforth increase, and the angle of illumination changes,

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Then will follow existence in a clime where no physical orbit will alternately banish or bring the sun, and make half the year a lightless night. The laws that bind men here shall surrender to their Framer, and a nightless existence shall reward those who once waited in sorrow for the morning. The Christian never dies. Death once was conquerer-but now, as Coleridge so beautifully says, on the bed where a Christian expires,

""Tis Death itself there dies."

ARTHUR EDWARDS

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