The Tried and Triumphant.
THERE are many things tried and found failures. A great architect is planning a mammoth building twenty-five stories high. The owner wishes it to be builded of a certain kind of rock that to him is beautiful, and by association of boyhood, dear. "Will it stand the test?" asks the master architect. "What test?" asks the owner. "The crushing force of thousands of tons in building and contents," is the reply. Test it. Therefore a small portion of the rock is taken and submitted to great pressure. It fails, and is rejected. Another is taken and tried, and found sufficiently hard, tenacious, and elastic to endure the crushing force of tons, and is chosen. An engineer in a military expedition must span a deep chasm with a suspension bridge or the army be delayed. He has cable enough for two spans. Will it stand the strain and carry the men and material sufficient for the successful prosecution of the war? He must first test it. He takes one or two strands of the wire cable and tests the tensile strength. It bears the test. The cable is strung, the bridge laid. The great Jehovah is building a living temple for eternity. He is gathering out a people to glorify His name thruout endless ages, so that to whatever worlds they shall go, wherever angels or men of other planets shall look upon them, they shall be seen "to the praise of the glory of His grace." The character of God will be interfused in them and stamped upon them. They will tell the story of God's wisdom, love, and power to other worlds. They will instruct intelligences yet to be created in the knowledge and love of God. God delights in tried things. His word is said to be a tried word. Ps. 12:6. Jesus Christ is the "tried Stone," the "precious Corner-stone," and therefore the "sure Foundation," of God's building. Isa. 28:16. Into this spiritual house God is building of the children of earth. Of course, they must be a tried people, those who have developed a fiber in character not rotted with sin, not weakened by lust, not interwoven with disintegrating selfishness. First, God calls us from sin and strife and darkness and slavery to righteousness and peace and light and freedom. If we accept the call, He enrols our names in the book of life, as candidates for the eternal character of His choosing. If we overcome, that eternal character and name is ours, a new name known only to us of all men, because it is the name of our experience. If we are conquerors, the victor's crown of righteousness, of life, is placed upon our brow. But in the overcoming there are trials sore and many to the natural heart. It will seem at times that we are wholly forsaken; that God has forgotten to be kind. But let faith not waver. He knows the trial and the need; knows how much the heart needs the loveliness; knows how hot the furnace fire needs to be to burn away the dross; knows how friends must seem unkind that we may learn of Him the only true Friend. He knows it all; and therefore no test will be made stronger than His grace will enable us to bear. If our own fiber fail, as it will, He will put into it stronger fiber, created anew. He will not suffer temptation to hedge up about so there will be no way of escape. Read 1 Peter 1:7; Job 23:10; Deut. 8:2, 3, 16; Ps. 66:10-12; Mal. 3:2, 3; 1 Cor. 10:10-12. He proves us that we may prove Him. Rom. 12:1, 2. Only by such trial and steadfastness in such trial, can we be made partakers with Christ Jesus our Lord. Would God that every soul who hears God's call and yields himself to the promptings of the Spirit could see the necessity of the trial, the sureness, if we elect, of the end. To its happy, eternally glorious result the throne of God is pledged if we will yield to His purpose. Rom. 8:28. Read the text as in the A.R.V. margin: "We know that to them that love God, God worketh all things with them for good." "All things?"—Yes, all things. "Sickness and loss of work?"—Yes. "The earthquake and fire?"—Yes. "The loss of husband, or wife, or child?"—Yes, "all things." By no "fortuitous combination" of circumstances, by no happen-so, does God do this, but by direct, positive working in behalf of each member of His spiritual body of believers, His church. Separate, the things may be evil. Separate, the stripe in our web of experience may be ugly. But "together," God's finished testing and all will be beautiful with divine glory. He has given us His pledge of this in the death of His Son; will He withhold anything now to prevent the perfection of the work? Rom. 8:32. We look at His greatness and the holiness of His law, and feel that we can in nowise meet the charge. But the only one who can lay aught to our charge is the One who justifies. We look upon the life of Christ, and feel condemned; but He does not condemn; He intercedes for us in all our weaknesses. Unbelief and complaint declare, "For Thy sake we are killed all the day long," but faith in His purpose declares, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors thru Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom. 8:36-39. O soul, whoever you are, accept God's call, submit to His proving, share His glory. IT is not God's will that His children should go on in darkness. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows the baleful fruitage of sin and wickedness. He knows how the injustice, oppression, corruption, and wrong of every sort will result in the disintegration and ruin of State and nation. Not only does the great Jehovah know, but He overrules to save the world. He puts down kings and raises up kings. He humbles one and exalts another. He casts down proud Babylon, who has outlived her usefulness, and plants in her stead successively Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome. If His own people become willing captives to sin, He permits the cruel of earth to humble and punish them, that they may learn wisdom, and turn to Him. But always God forewarns of the evil. Was the Deluge to enflood the earth?—God sends faithful Noah to preach and labor, that the world may repent and be saved. Has Sodom's sin become so great that it were a mercy to destroy the city?—Warnings are sent to its people. And these are only two of many instances which God has given, all demonstrations of His inspired assurance: "Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, except He reveal His secret unto His servants the prophets." Amos 3:7. Men of the world are in darkness over the things coming on the earth. Scientists are making contradictory guesses. Preachers are dreaming of cloud lands of peace. Statesmen are at their wits' ends, and frankly confess that the future is dark before. And yet God has revealed it in His word. He would have all the world know. He has given us prophecy as a light "in a dark place until the day dawn." 2 Peter 1:19. He would have all to know and follow the light. Do men want to know?—Surely they do; but they want it their way. Many of them are too proud to learn from the Book of God discounted by the "higher critics." In the nature of the case, He can not teach the proud and self-sufficient. "The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom." "The friendship [secret, counsel] of Jehovah is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant." "The meek will He teach His way." "Ye are all sons of light; . . . so then let us not sleep, as do the rest, but let us watch and be sober."