idea. Their prevailing idea, I repeat, for patience and consolation are the underlying thoughts that run through them all from cover to cover. Daniel in the den of lions; Jonas in his novel prison-house; Susanna between infamy and death; the three youths in the fiery furnace; and Job, destitute, friendless, and afflicted — these are but a few of the cases wherein we find God's promise fulfilled: " I am with him in his affliction; I will deliver him and I will glorify him."
Brethren, if what things soever are written in the Sacred Scriptures are written for our instruction, there must be a corresponding obligation on our part to read and study them. From these sacred pages we learn what we must do to possess life eternal. From them we learn, too, how to make our temporal life endurable. Be our specialty history, science, art, or literature, we will find in the Bible ample matter for our study and entertainment. In it, also, we will find the key to the solution of the principal problems that confront the Christian world to-day. And travelling, as we are, through this world, falling often among its thieves and suffering at their hands, we will learn from the Scriptures the comforting presence of Him who enables us to bear wrongs patiently; or if the more fortunate, we learn how to be the Good Samaritan to some less fortunate brother. Thus profiting by the things written for our instruction, through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures, we will have reason, indeed, to have "hope unto life everlasting."
