Bible Investigator from Doniphan, Kansas • 11

THE STIIEA3I OF DEATH. "There is a stream, whose narrow tide The known and unknown worlds divide, Where all must go It's waveless waters, dark and deep, 'Mid sullen silence, downward sweep With moanless flow. "I saw where, at that dreary flood, A smiling infant prattling stood, hose hour was come; Untaught of ill it neared the tide, Sunk, as to cradled rest, and died Like going home. "Followed with languid eye, anon, A youth diseased, and pale, and wan; And there alone Ie gazed upon the leaden stream, Ami feared to plunge; I heard ascream-And he was gone. "And then a form in manhood's strength Came hustling on 'till there, at length, He saw life's bound.

He shrunk, and raised the bitter prayer, Too late his shriek of wild despair The waters drowned. "Next stood upon that surgeless shore A being bowed with many score Of toilsome years. Earthbound, and sad, he left the bank, Back turned his dimming eye, and sank- Ah! full of fears. "How bitter must thy waters be, Oil Death I How hard a thing, ah me 1 It is to die, I niused when to tliattream again Another child of mortal man With smiles drew nigh. 4 'Tis the the last he calmly said, To me, Death thou hast no dread.

Saviour, I come I Spread but thine arms on yonder shore. 1 see Ye waters, bear me 'o'er 1 There is my she had a special subject of joy, personal to herself; but if she had not believed in the Saviour soon to be revealed she would not so have rejoiced. It was not only the honor to which she had besn called; not only the thought that all generations should call her blessed, that so filled and elevated her mind; it was, rather, thoughts in which the whole church of Christ, redeemed ones, may. share with her. The wonderful thought, 4 'God, my Saviour," God Himself, not man performing the work "My Saviour," not others only, but even me partaking in the benefits of that work.

Saviour: This word means so much, it tells of such hopeless helplessness, such utter depths of human misery, a world that cannot save itself. Saviour: This is the name by which Jesus speaks to the heart that needs Him. Saviour from all sin and its consequences, now and ever iriore; Saviour from sorrow, form ignorance, from darkness, from everlasting death. uGod, uiy Saviour," reveuls the mind of God in Christ toward man; the love of God, the plan and purpose of God, the glory of God. Let.

us take the word so truly and deply home to ourselves that whatever be the sorrows of our life, the anxieties of our minds, or the difficulties. GOD, MY SAVIOUR. For the Investigator, He that has but four and spends five will soon need no purse, and take to all sorts of dodges to manage it. A peaceful and happy death is by the appointment of Heaven, connected with a holy and virtuous life. A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE.

(Continued from No. 6, page 48.) Take another instance among men. Leo has a great deal of good nature, has kept what they call good company, hates everything that is false and base, is very generous and brave to his friends, but has concerned himself so little with religion that he hardly knows the difference between a Jew and a Christian. Ensebius, on the other hand, has had early impressions of religion, and buys books of devotion. He can talk of all the feasts and fasts, of the church, and knows the names of most men that have been eminent for piety.

You never hear him swear or make a loose jest, arid when he talks of religion he talks of it as a matter of the last concern. Here you see that one person has religion enough according to the ways of the world to be reckoned a pious Christian, and the other is so far from all appearance of religion that he may be reckoned a heathen; and yet, if you look into their common life, if you examine their ruling tempers in the greatest articles of life or the greatest doctrines of Christianity, you will find the least difference imaginable. Consider them with regard to the use of the world, because that is what everybody can see. Now, to have right notions with relation to this world is as essential to religion as to have right notions of God; and it. is as possible for a man to worship a crocodile and yet be a pious man as to have his affections set upon this world and yet be a good Christian.

But now, if you consider Leo and Ensebius in this respect, you will find them exactly alike, seeking, using and enjoying all that can be got in this world, in the same manner and for the same ends." You will find that riches, prosperity, pleasures, indulgences, state, equipage and honor, are just as much the happiness of Ensebius as they are of Leo. And yet, if Christianity has not changed a man's mind and temper with relation to. these things, what can we say that it has done for him? For, if the doctrines of Christianity were practiced, they would make a man as different from other people as to all worldly tempers, sensual pleasures and the pride of life, as a wise man is different from one of folly; it would be as easy a thing to know a Christian by his outward course of life, as it is now difficult to find anybody that lives it, for it is notorious that Christians are now not only like other men in their frailties and infirmities; this might be in some degree excusable, but the complaint is they are like heathens in all the main and chief articles of their lives. They enjoy the world and live every day in the same tempers, and the same" designs, and the same indulgences as they did who knew not God, nor of any happiness in another life. Everybody that is capable of any reflection must have observed that this is generally the state of even devout people, whether men or women.

You may see them different from other people so far as to times and places of prayer, but generally like the rest of the world in all the other parts of their lives; that is, adding Christian devotion to a heathen life. I have the authority of our Blessed Saviour for this remark, where he says, "Take no thought, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? for after all these things do the Gentiles seek." But if to be thus affected, even with the necessary things of this life, shows that we are not yet of a Christian spirit, but are like the heathens, surely to" enjoy the folly and vanity of the world as they did, to be like them in the main chief tempers of our lives, in self love and indulgence, in sensual pleasures and diversions, in the vanity of dress, the love of show and greatness or any other gaudy distinctions of fortune, is a much greater sign of of a heathen temper, and consequently, they who add devotion to such a life must be said to pray as. Christians but live as heathens. These words short; simple, but fall of of our positirn, we may find matter of holy rejoicing in Him who was born into the world to deliver us, and may with truth say for ourselves "God, my Saviour." Dear reader, may you accept Christ as your Soviour, and live here on earth, His footstool, so when you have done with this world that he will own you and take you to dwell with him. G.

W. Agee. matter for thought; Words that teach us what God is, we are, and what God would have us to be; Words that humble man's pride, for they own that he cannot save himself; words that strengthen man's hope, for they speak of One able to save; words that reveal the faith of her who uttered them, and encourage us to believe and rejoice in the Saviour in whom Mary rejoiced. These words could not have been written by a proud pharisee, for such a one lnows not that he needs a Saviour; still less could they have been the words of a careless, faithless sadducee, for to him there is no spiritual world to hope for or to fear. They are the words of a lowly heart, uttered in a lowly, but a most blessed place, even at the footstool of mercy.

There the sinner who feels his sin to be both a crime and a stain, cries, "God bo merciful to me, a sinner," and at the same time, looks to. Jesus on the cross and cries, "My soul hath rejoiced ill God my Saviour." And the more the believing soul looks at the Saviour the more does it rejoice. When Mary uttered these words she rejoiced in a way which she saw by faith; Whom she looked for, the long promised One was now at hand; When a man has a particulary empty head he generally sets up for great judge, especially in religion. None so wise as the man who knows nothing. His ignorance is the mother of his imprudence, and the nurse of his obstinacy; hear him talk after he has been at meeting and heard a sermon, and you will know how to pull a good man to pieces, if you never knew it before.

He. sees faults where there are none, and if there be a few things amiss, he makes every mouse into an elephant. Although you might put all his wit into an egg-shell, he weighs the sermon in the bal- DO JO ance of his conceit with all the airs ot a Solomon. The best garden may have a few weeds in it..