An Important Question

I WENT into an Underground train in London the other day, and had hardly seated myself when a woman opposite me leaned forward and said
“May I ask if you are on the Lord’s side?” “Yes,” I answered; “thank God, I am.” “Is it long since you were first able to say that?” she continued.
“Yes,” I replied, “many years. And I find Him more and more precious daily. In fact, I cannot imagine how one could go through life without Jesus Christ for a Saviour and Friend.”
“Ah,” she said, “you may well say that. But I have, alas! met many, many people who don’t want Christ, and will not have anything to say to those who love Him. It is—”
Here the noise of the train was so great that I could not hear the conclusion of her sentence.
Presently the train stopped at a station, and two ladies and two men came into our compart­ment. My friend lost no time in giving her message to each newcomer. “Madam, do you know what it is to have Jesus Christ as your Saviour?” “Sir, are you on the Lord’s side?” And then she went on to say a few words on the importance of having this matter settled.
Those to whom she spoke offered no reply.
One lady turned her back on her and looked out of the window, and a gentleman read his newspaper steadily, vouchsafing no answer.
At length the woman reached her destina­tion, and, as she alighted, one of the ladies said:
“That’s all right; if she had not got out here I was going to change my carriage. I could not stand that sort of creature.”
“Poor lunatic!” said the second lady; “she ought to be locked up.”
“Such ranting old women should be buried alive,” said a young man sneeringly.
“How strange!” I said to myself, as I left the carriage and went on my way. “Society must be on a very wrong basis. One may talk about anything and everything except about Jesus Christ. The latest murder trial may be discussed in public, and one may speak of the greatest blackguards that ever lived, with im­punity; but if anyone ventures to speak about the God who made us and the Saviour who died for us, one is shunned or laughed at, or at least considered ‘very peculiar—not quite right, you know.’”
Why is this? Why should we banish Him from our conversation Whom to know is life everlasting? How should we feel if Christ Himself appeared (as He will one day) sud­denly, and asked the all-important question?
Ah there is no doubt on whose side we would then like to find ourselves arrayed.
A certain king of days gone by had a jester, of whom he was very fond. One day he pre­sented this jester with a richly ornamented staff, and said, “Keep this, unless you find a bigger fool than yourself; and then give it him.”
Years passed, and the king was taken seriously ill and was about to die, and he sent for his jester to bid him farewell. The jester approached the bedside of his royal patron, and, kneeling, presented the staff to his master.
“What’s this for?” asked the king.
“Sire,” replied the jester, “I do as you desired me. I have at last found a bigger fool than myself. You have to start now on a long journey, for which you have made no preparation, although you always made great prepara­tions before setting out on a journey in your dominions. Those short journeys were of little consequence, but this one is; and yet you never gave it a thought, though you knew you must take it someday, and you knew not how soon.”
Yes, we are fools, indeed, if we put off settling this great question any longer.
And of this we may be sure, that we shall never repent, neither in this world nor in the next, of having taken our stand on God’s side.
Regret being on the victorious side? What a foolish idea!
But we shall regret (oh, how terribly!), both in this world and the next, every day, every hour, which finds us on the devil’s side.
Oh! make sure of your position before you go a step further in the journey of life.
You not only risk your happiness in the future world by delay, but you lose so much joy and peace in this life.
And to those who are already on the Lord’s side I would say, Do not fear to say so. Never mind if you are called a “lunatic.” Was it not once said of the Master whom you serve, “He is beside Himself”?
“Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me . . . of Him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He cometh.” (Mark 8:38.)
“Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 10:32, 33.)
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THE LAMB IS THE LIGHT THEREOF.
CHRIST’S glory shining on His people will make them shine in heaven. We shall reflect His glory. How cold is the dewdrop before the sun has risen! But the rising sun, shining upon it, lights it up with glory. Christ, “the Light thereof,” will beam upon us; we shall reflect Him as the dewdrop does the image of the sun. We shall see His face, and His name shall be in our foreheads.

Rome as She Is Today
A CONVERTED GODDESS.
HERE is nothing in the doctrine of the Church of Rome, which exactly answers to the evangelical belief of the conversion of a man to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. But Rome not unfrequently converts a pagan idol into a so-called Christian image, and thus the old pagan worshippers are able to retain their pagan rites while adopting the cloak of Christianity.
The Aztecs were pagans, who inhabited Mexico, and some of our friends in Mexico have sent us accounts of the grand coronation of “the Virgin of Guadalupe,” who is the patron saint of Mexico, and is so on political as well as on religious grounds.
The original goddess, “Tonantzin― the Mother of Gods,” was worshipped by the pagans, and now, where her shrine stood, is the shrine of the Mother of God, who is wor­shipped by “Christians.” How the “Mother of Gods” became transformed into the “Mother of God” we have not time to tell; suffice it to say it was some three hundred years ago, and that it was communicated to men by a vision. The Christian bishop was incredulous when he first heard of what had occurred, and evidence was sent him in the shape of an Indian’s blanket―one common to the country―upon which was found a picture of the Lady. This picture is held today in high reverence. We have before us a Mexican paper, which recounts the coronation of this image and also a little piety picture card of her, with a prayer on the back.
The Virgin of Guadalupe is the divinity of the Indians, who hold a festival to her on December 12th all through the republic of Mexico; indeed, “so completely is the Indian character of the festival recognized, that the church is wholly given up to the Indian wor­shippers. In it they conduct their celebration, unhampered by priests, in their own way.” And how much of the celebration is in honor of “Tonantzin, the Mother of Gods,” is not asked.
The picture represents a female crowned, and robed with a star spangled garment. She stands upon the horns of the moon. All of the symbols are well known, and ancient pagan in origin.
Part of the prayer referred to runs thus: “I count myself happy if I have always in sight thy pure and spotless beauty. . . . What a. despising of the inconstancy of worldly things, and what a value for the things of heaven is produced by seeing that thou didst not choose other adornings than the stars of heaven, the orbs of the firmament, and the angels of the Empyrean. . . . I offer myself completely to thy service. I devote myself to love and please thee as a tender and dutiful son. Fill thou the place of a Mother to me, and obtain from the Lord the ability to do that which I desire and purpose to do―So let it be.”
Our Christian readers will agree that in this case Rome, as she is today, is generally pagan. She keeps the idol, renames it, and then worships it. The conversion of the idol does not result in a change of its nature, the prayer of her admirer being just that sort of prayer a heathen could address to his deity.