and
see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the
Lord thy God."

No Need to Read Them

A great many people say, you must hear both sides; but if a man should
write me a most slanderous letter about my wife, I don't think I would
have to read it; I should tear it up and throw it to the winds. Have I
to read all the infidel books that are written, to hear both sides?
Have I to take up a book that is a slander on my Lord and Master, who
has redeemed me with His blood? Ten thousand times no! I will not
touch it.

Tolling the Bell

I well remember how in my native village in New England it used to be
customary, as a funeral procession left the church, for the bell to
toll as many times as the deceased was years old. How anxiously I
would count those strokes of the bell to see how long I might reckon
on living! Sometimes there would be seventy or eighty tolls, and I
would give a sigh of relief to think I had so many years to live. But
at other times there would be only a few years tolled, and then a
horror would seize me as I thought that I, too, might soon be claimed
as a victim by that dread monster, Death. Death and judgment were a
constant source of fear to me till I realized the fact that neither
shall ever have any hold on a child of God. In his letter to the
Romans the apostle Paul has showed, in most direct language, that
there is no condemnation for a child of God, but that he is passed
from under the power of law, and in the Epistle to the Corinthians he
tells us that "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual
body," "and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also
bear the image of the heavenly."

A Father's Neglect

A story has gone the round of the American press that made a great
impression upon me as a father. A father took his little child out
into the field one Sabbath, and, it being a hot day, lie lay down
under a beautiful shady tree. The little child ran about gathering
wild flowers and little blades of grass, and coming to its father and
saying:

"Pretty! pretty!"

At last the father fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the little
child wandered away. When he awoke, his first thought was:

"Where is my child?"

He looked all around, but he could not see him. He shouted at the top
of his voice, but all he heard was the echo. Running to a little hill,
he looked around and shouted again. No response! Then going to a
precipice at some distanc