your mouth and is ready and willing to guide you?" The word went home to the coachman's heart. (Text.)
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CONTROL OF CIRCUMSTANCES
The time has not yet come when man may
plow the atmosphere for rain as he plows
the soil for crops. If mines must be worked
and towns built in arid regions, let promoters
of these schemes be required to build
aqueducts and bore wells sufficient in advance
to supply the needed water, not waiting
until droughts come and the people die.
Every place on this globe has its rainy years
and its dry years. Areas of cold and heat,
wind and calm, rain and drought, appear
and move and disappear in irregular succession.
We must prepare for them and
provide against disaster. We can not control
the weather, but we may control ourselves.
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CONVERSION
Rev. J. Hawksley, a missionary among the
Indians of the Klondyke, was one evening
holding a service and using a magic lantern.
He threw upon the screen a picture of Christ
cleansing the temple. An inveterate gambler
in the audience was so imprest with the attitude
of Christ that the words in explanation
went straight to his heart. "If Christ
was so angry at those who did such things
in His earthly temple, I am sure He would
never let such a sinner as I am come into
His holy temple above. I will give up my
gambling and ask His pardon." And the
man kept his word.
(569)
That man steeped in iniquity can be won back by the grace of Christ to a life of decency and service is one of the marvels of the world.
Luther Burkank, the well-known botanist,
finds in nature this renewing and generating
quality. He can take a tree that shows distinct
evidence of decay, that looks as if it
were beyond recovery, and treat it, and treat
it again, until he rescues it from its bad habits
of many years' standing. He directs its
energies so that they flow in new channels
and, as "if by the shock of re-creation," what
was once blighted and blasted becomes beautiful,
fragrant and fruitful. (Text.)
(570)
In 1855 some Hebrew Christians met in New York to observe the Passover. The meal being over, one after the other rose to testify to faith and love in Christ. One man sat with head dropt between his hands, then sobs shook his body, and those around saw that a mighty conflict was in progress in his soul. Suddenly he leapt to his feet and cried, "I will no longer deny my Lord! I will follow Him outside the camp." God took that Polish Jew—for it was Bishop Schereschewsky—and through him gave the Mandarin Bible to the vast empire of China. The Passover had become the Supper of the Lord.
(571)
Like a ship becalmed in tropic seas, whose sails hang useless in the breathless air, whose sailors wearily, idly wander about the decks or lean listlessly over the bulwarks looking into the waveless, torpid sea, and over which the heavy gloom of despair and hopeless waiting hangs like a stifling air, so is many a soul arrested in the voyage of life. Its energies are like the useless sails, its thoughts like the listless sailors, the whole spirit of its life like the dull, weary scene of the idly drifting ship. And when at length the welcome wind comes rippling the sea's dead calm, filling the drooping sails, lifting the ship onward in its course, what music in the rustle of its coming! what joy in the new force it brings to the forceless ship! what animation of life, revival of hope, fleeing of all the dull, dreary spirits which haunted the scene a moment before! So is a soul who has lived with no great, good purpose which gave progress, importance, and interest to life, when at length it seizes on the great Christian purpose of living unto God. (Text.)—W. R. Brooks, Baptist Examiner.
(572)
See Creature, A New.
CONVERSION AND A BUTTON
In the life of Charles G. Finney there is
an account of the conversion of a prominent
merchant. He went to hear Mr. Finney
preach and was powerfully affected. Mr.
Arthur Tappan, the eminent merchant, sat
near him and noticed his agitation. In telling
his experience afterward he said that as he
arose to go, Mr. Tappan stept up and took
him gently by the button of his coat and
asked him to stay for prayer and conversation.
He tried to excuse himself, but Mr. Tappan
held on till he finally yielded. He said afterward,
"He held fast to my button, so that an
ounce weight at my button was the means
of saving my soul."
(573)
