A Letter

"DO you like to receive letters?" I fancy I hear you say, "Yes, of course we do." Well, I quite agree with you, for I, too, like to get a letter, and especially if it be from someone I love dearly. But the nicest letters, and those that help us the most, are the ones written by the true disciples of Jesus. So as I have a great many such letters I thought I should like to copy parts of some, in the hope that they may be the means of cheering and helping some of my dear young friends who are traveling on the narrow road to heaven.
It does not matter how old you are, or what position you may occupy in the world. Whether old or young, rich or poor, every one may be a disciple of Jesus. The first letter I am going to copy from is written by a young girl who was a member of one of my Bible classes some few years since: "I know that I cannot do right by myself," she writes, "but I feel as though some one was helping me on. It did seem difficult at first. The texts help me a great deal. I know that Jesus will help me.”
The next bit I shall copy is from the letter of another girl, in my present Bible class, who is only seventeen. She has had to pass through great trials, having lost her father in a railway accident, and her only brother, who was drowned. She has had no one to love her, and very few to care for her, and yet she is one of the brightest girls in the class, for, as her letter shows, she has found a friend in Jesus.
This is how she writes to me: "It is so nice to think of Jesus being always with us, and whatever comes, He will never leave us, nor forsake us. I just ask Jesus to help me, and whatever I pray for I think about all day. I seem to wait for the answer, and I could tell you of such a lot of prayers that have been answered... God knows how we are tempted, and He knows our weakness. If I only ask Him to help me, and trust Him, and believe He will, He is sure to do it. If only I have Jesus with me to guide me, and His strength to help me to resist temptation, I cannot go wrong, and I do indeed realize my Saviour's presence. I cannot find words to explain the joy there is in living close to Jesus. I have got into the habit of speaking to Him wherever I am or whatever I am doing. Don't you think He hears and answers just the same, as if we wait till we have time to kneel down? It is so nice to think that God never misunderstands us, and it is sweet to think that Jesus is smiling on us while others frown.”
I will only add in conclusion that the "same Jesus" my dear girls find so precious is willing to be your Saviour, your Friend, your Helper. If you go to Him, you will find His promise true to you also: "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (John 15:7.) May you, dear reader, find in Jesus your never-failing Friend in sorrow or joy, in care or prosperity, in health or in sickness. May each who reads this be able to say —
“I have found a Friend in Jesus;
Oh, how He loves!”
T.
Salvation
WE have spoken of salvation as the present possession of God's people. But none the less is salvation the prospect of those who are saved. We are saved, but we are saved in hope, or by hope. (Rom. 8:24.) Hoping to be saved, and being saved in hope, are vastly different. He who hopes to be saved, does not know that he is saved; but he who knows he is saved, hopes for the coming day of glory if a man be on board ship, he knows he is there, and, being safe on board, hopes for the harbor and his friends whither the vessel is bound. The believer is bound for glory, and for this he hopes. Yet not as one on board a ship might hope; for a vessel may founder at sea; but God's people are in Christ, and their future is as certain as their present. Their hope has no element of uncertainty in it. "Glorified together" with Christ is the grand and certain prospect before the soul saved by Christ, and this expectation filling the heart by the Spirit, enables the believer to say, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." For what are the waves and. the storms of life but difficulties to be passed over, each of which marks one stage nearer eternal rest! We are waiting—saved indeed by the blood of Christ, safe indeed in Him —for "the redemption of our body," when we shall be glorified like the Lord. Such is the hope by or in which we are saved. We see not yet this grand end this eternal destiny; but we "hope for" it, and the day draws nigh; and "if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." (Read Rom. 8:18, 30.)
The Lord Jesus Christ is our perfect Saviour. He will save us from every trace of weakness and of corruption that pertains to these our bodies of humiliation, and let us give Him the glory in our hearts in this His gracious title of Saviour! How the matchless energy of a soul filled with longings after Christ gives vigor to the steps of the believer, as we read in the third chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians! St. Paul's eye was fixed on Jesus, glorified, and in the power of this sight every great thing of this world became as dross and as dung to his soul. Christ he reached forth unto, in his eager race, and then, looking round for a moment upon some he loved —his eyes filled with tears because of their earth-loving spirits—he said, " Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. Therefore, my brethren, dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.”
This salvation is our hope—a hope the early Christians had in power in their souls. Think of the Thessalonian believers, tried and persecuted; and, as their surroundings present themselves to view, with what force does the exhortation come home to our souls, "Let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on... for an helmet the hope of salvation." (1 Thess. 5:4-11.) With such an helmet they might indeed hold up their heads in the midst of foes. And when Christians become weak, and their spiritual life lacks nerve and fire, they have failed to put on the helmet of the hope of salvation. The battle will soon be over, the foes soon driven back. Victory is assured; salvation and glory are at hand—"take the helmet of salvation." (Eph. 6:17.)
“Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed," says the Scripture to each of us, exhorting us by the immediateness of the glory to awake out of sleep, and to live honorably. Day by day the hope nears its realization. How soon it may burst upon us we know not. Well will it be for such of God's people as have their lives now governed by its near approach. Let us not be found sleeping when Jesus comes, or engaged with such as indulge their debased tastes, or with those who give themselves to jealousy and strife. (Rom. 13:11-14.)
“Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." (Heb. 9:28.) His first coming related to sin, and "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many;" His second corning will be to bring this perfect salvation to His people. Happy are they who have the eyes of their hearts looking for Him.