John 3

John 3:1-16

Salvation Made Plain John 3:1-16 WORDS We are using the story of Nicodemus as the basis of our message for today. However, we are planning to bring out some very vital considerations which no one portion of Scripture would supply. Therefore, we will go from Scripture to Scripture for much of our discussion. We wish to present to you a brief story of Nicodemus.

1. The description of man’s best. Nicodemus was one of Israel’s teachers. That he summed up the very highest ideals of Judaism, we have no doubt. He was reckoned as a Pharisee, and as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He was one of those who made broad his phylacteries, who made large the borders of his garments.

He was a man against whom there were no charges, and he stood clean in the sight of men. As a religionist he was a recognized authority and power. In this world there are many such men, and there always have been. There was Saul of Tarsus. He himself said that concerning the Law he was blameless. He came from the strictest sect of the Pharisees.

He had high ideals. His ambition was, beyond a doubt, to become a member of the Sanhedrin, and a leader among his people, Israel. The rich young ruler was another New Testament character whose morals were unimpeachable. He came running to Jesus inquiring how he might enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord referred him to the ten Commandments, and he replied, “All these have I kept from my youth up.” The rich young ruler was beyond any doubt a high type of young manhood. The Lord, looking on him, loved him.

There are many men today who are of the same class, men who serve everything that is worth while in family life, in the state, and in the commercial world, who do not stoop to the mean methods of dishonesty and injustice. These men may even go farther and give honor unto the God of Heaven. They will say that they are interested in everything that is good and righteous. They will help the churches with their contributions. While they confess no faith in Christ, yet they believe the church has a high moral mission among men, and they stand for general world betterment no matter from what source it comes. Their own innate goodness and honor is their only hope of Heaven. If you would ask me if they will be saved as they now are, I would answer, “Absolutely no!” The reason, we will discuss under our next point. 2. Man’s best is short of God’s righteousness. When men compare themselves among themselves they stand forth to good advantage, but when these same men compare themselves to the righteousness of God, they are miserably short. Thus it is the Bible says, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” When we think of God we think of Him as dwelling in light, unapproachable. We can even now hear the angelic hosts saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts.” Men are sinners. By nature they are fallen, corrupt, and full of darkness. 3. Job, an example. The three false friends of Job continually condemned him, alleging he was a sinner. Their position was that the basis of approach to God was an unimpeachable integrity. This, they claimed, Job lacked. God hid His face from His servant, said they, because His servant was vile and unjust.

All of this appears very good on its face, but God’s estimate of Job was that there was none like him in all the earth. He was “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and eschewed evil.” Thus Job stands not as his three false friends insinuated, a base and corrupt personage, but before God as the very best product of Adam’s race. However, even Job’s righteousness fell short of the righteousness of God, and when Job, who had constantly maintained his integrity, saw the Lord face to face, he said, “Behold, I am vile,” and he added, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” I. THE OF WITH GOD (Hebrews 12:14-16) Our verse says: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”

1. Social standards among men. All men put up a barrier between themselves and other men, or groups of men. In order to pass that barrier, and enter into the comradeship of others, there are certain prerequisites. There are social standards, which are set by various groups according to their own social attainments. To enter into the upper “four hundred” there are things demanded which would not be demanded in what we might term “the lower four hundred.” Every city, village, and hamlet in the United States has its own social cliques, perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless effectively. They put up a wall of financial, social, or political idealisms to which one must measure up in order to enter in. There are financial standards. The men who handle the great monetary problems of the nations of the world would deem it far beneath their dignity to receive into their monetary councils men who are altogether beneath their own capabilities. The president of the United States, if he is selecting men to advise with him on how to save the nation from its depression, will seek only such men as will measure up to the economic standards which he sets up. Musicians have their standards; poets have their standards, as do painters and sculptors, and others.
2. Spiritual standards with God. God cannot receive into His fellowship or presence the unclean. Men feel that fellowship with one. beneath their class drags them down, and puts a shadow upon their own attainments. The pure cannot associate intimately with the impure, the learned with the ignorant, the exalted with the humble. God cannot associate the just with the unjust, the holy with the unholy, the clean with the unclean. If God lowered the standards of entrance into Heaven He would mar the beauty, the glory, the blessedness of that wonderful sphere. God has said concerning His holy city that the unclean shall in no way enter therein. II. GOD’S TO A FAILURE (Jeremiah 18:4) Our verse describes the potter who was making a vessel upon his wheel. “And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”
3. The attitude of men toward their own failures. The artist is standing at a distance looking at a picture which he has painted. As he looks at it he finds that it is beneath the usual standard of his work. He will not dare to let that picture go out as the product of his brush because it would drag down his good name and ruin his reputation. He throws the painting aside. The poet who has just penned a sonnet reads it over. He sees that its whole conception, the dignity, and beauty of its message, has been marred. Perhaps, the rhythm is out of order; perhaps the meter is faulty, or more likely the beauty of thought is lacking. The poet will not place this failure among the gems which he has written. He casts it aside. The mechanic has sought to place an invention upon the market. He had many dreams of its possibilities. When, however, he tried it out it failed to work; thus he threw it aside.
4. God’s attitude to a failure. God created man in His own image, and He said of His work, “It is good.” However, man failed. Man sold out to Satan. God, therefore, entered into the garden of Eden, saying, “Where art thou?” He asked, “What hast thou done?” Then He pronounced the curse, and drove man out of the garden. God could not receive that failure into His own fellowship. Neither could He send forth that man who had failed as a representative of His Divine glory. As we look at the corrupted earth we see the judgment of the flood. As we look at a corrupted nation, even Israel, we find a nation cast off and wandering among men. As we look at a corrupted church we hear Christ saying that it shall be broken off. III. THE OF GOD’S CRY AND MAN’S (Psalms 9:13-17) We spoke of the work of the artist, the mechanic, and the poet. The work all falls beneath the dignity and glory of the supreme work of God. The artist created with his fingers a wonderful picture; the sculptor has a marvelous dream of a marble creation, and the poet of fascinating rhythm. Their work is mechanical or materialistic. Lifeless is the work of their brain and brawn. God, on the other hand, created a man with life, man with a will, with power of choice, power to love or to hate, power to do good or evil. Therefore the class of God’s creation is far beyond that of man. When man sinned the very highest and climactic work of the Almighty came into disrepute. This wreckage caused God’s Name to be defamed among all the nations of the earth. One thing God could not do— He could not receive into His abiding approval and blessing His spoiled workmanship. There was only one thing left to do, and that has just been discussed. God was compelled in the nature of the case to cast aside His own creation. It is for this cause that God said, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” In the Book of Revelation we read that the unbelieving, the sorcerers, the whoremongers, the murderers, the idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie shall be put out of the City. They shall find their lot in the lake of fire with the beast and the false prophet. IV. GOD’S DESIRE TO RESTORE THE WORK OF HIS HANDS (2 Peter 3:9) When the potter saw that his vessel was marred, he made it again. The artist, the sculptor, the poet, the mechanic, any man and every man will restore the work of his fingers if he can do it. That which is cast aside is that which is hopelessly a failure. Man had no power to rescue himself. He could not lift himself above himself, nor make a new self upon the wreckage of the old self. The corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit; the bitter fountain cannot give good water. The leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin. The proposition which confronted God was how He could be just, and yet justify the ungodly. He who says that God does not love the sinner is wrong. He does not love the sinner’s sin, but He so loved the sinner that He gave Christ to die. We can almost now hear the plaintive voice of God as He cried concerning disobedient and wayward Ephraim: “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?” God yearned for Adam and Eve as soon as they had sinned, and told them how they might be saved. God has commanded us, today, to carry the Gospel of His redemptive work to every creature. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to a saving-knowledge of the truth. To us the story of God’s great love surpasses understanding. God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son. God was in Christ reconciling men unto Himself. Never think of God as a tyrant with a whip ruthlessly driving" His marred creation to hell. To be sure, if His work cannot be renewed, restored, redeemed, He will, in the nature of the case, be forced to cast His creative work off forever. This, however, He will not do until, with all patience, He has endeavored again and again to save the lost. V. GOD’S PLAN (John 3:16) Some one has called this verse the Gospel in a nutshell. It is a marvelous verse. It shows how God, loving the world, gave His Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish. When we go to the manger in Bethlehem, and we see the infant, Christ, we see the great purpose and plan of God before the world was, coming to maturity. That Babe in the manger is grace operating. It is mercy active. In that Babe’s little body was incarnate God, God made flesh and dwelling among us, God the holy and the sinless. As we pass from the manger to the baptismal scene where Christ, now thirty years of age, is baptized, we behold the same creative plan in progress. From the Heavens the Father speaks, saying, “This is My beloved Son.” As we stand by the Cross and see the same Son of God dying, we see God’s purpose of redemption reaching its climactic conclusion. God was seeking to save the lost. However, in His purpose He had to satisfy the offended God. He had to sustain His own holiness and justice, removing every obstacle to man’s redemption. When Christ cried on the Cross, “It is finished,” He meant that the basis of man’s redemption was a completed task. As we stand at the empty tomb we see God putting on the great assuring confirmation of His redemptive grace. The resurrection of Christ gives us an acclaimed Christ, a satisfied Father. From that day on God hath made the message of His redemptive Gospel a potent and powerful message, by the resurrection of Christ from the dead. VI. GOD’S ONE DEMAND OF THE SINNER (John 1:12-13) The sacrifice of the Saviour had completed God’s work of redemption so far as salvation from the power of death and hell was concerned. Christ’s ascension has assured to the sinner the power of a new life. Christ’s coming again will bring the resurrection of the body and the glorious consummation of God’s redemptive plan. However, before the sinner can be saved there are other things which must be accomplished. “He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Jesus is a Saviour in possibility to all men, but in actuality only to those who believe. God says, “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His Name.” The saved soul is saved only on the accomplishment of God in Christ upon the Cross, but he is saved upon the basis of his own faith. There is, however, besides faith, another contingency, and that is confession. In Romans 10:1-21 we read, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” We do not mean that a person cannot be saved by grace through faith alone and apart from confession. What we do mean is the saved soul will confess. The Word of God says, “He that doeth truth cometh to the Light, that his deeds may be made manifest.” One thing we will need to remember, and that is that saving faith is a living, active, obedient faith. We are saved by grace, through faith apart from works, but we are saved by a faith that works. VII. MAN’S SIN (John 16:8) We have passed down the line having discussed God’s standard of fellowship; God’s attitude to a failure; God’s creation not a machine; God’s desire to save; God’s redemptive plan; and God’s one demand upon the sinner. Now we come to the most startling thing of all. Our key text tells us that when the Spirit is come He will reprove men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come. “Of sin, because they believe not on Me.” Man’s greatest sin is the rejection of a Saviour. It is not his sins that damn him, because the Father in Christ has made full atonement for sin; and He suffered for our sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. The question now before the man of the world is the “Son” question, not the “sin” question. As to the sin question, he needs no preaching. He knows he is a sinner. As to the Son question that is another matter. The whole Gospel of the Book of John is written that we might believe that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through His Name. He who wants to be saved will find no other door to Heaven than Christ Jesus. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the life. He is the Bread of Life; He is the Water of Life; He is the Resurrection, and the Life. We ask once more the question we asked in the beginning of this study: “What think ye of Christ?” All men are sinners. The lost sinner is the man who has Christ under his feet. The saved sinner is the man who opens his heart and accepts Christ as Saviour and Lord. AN MADE PLAIN “Salvation Offered. A missionary sat in the midst of a little circle of South Sea Islanders. He read to them the third chapter of John’s Gospel. Presently he came to the verse, ‘God so loved the world,’ etc. One of his hearers started from his seat and exclaimed: ‘What sounds were those I heard?’ The missionary repeated the verse. The native again rose up from his seat, and earnestly asked his instructor: ‘Is that true? Can it be true that God so loved the world? God’s own Son came to die that man might not die? Is it true?’ The missionary assured him that it was the very message he had come so far to deliver, and that they were happy who would receive it. The man burst into tears, and turned from the little company into the bushes to think alone over the wonderful news.”

John 3:16

God’s Wonderful Love Story John 3:16; 1 John 4:7-19 WORDS We wish to give our whole attention today to one verse of Scripture. It stands before us as an unfathomable river of blessing. Some one has called John 3:16 “the Gospel in a nutshell.” Let us notice for our first statement The Great Lover.Who is it that so loves the world? It is God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, the Divine Trinity loves us, and yet John 3:16 is speaking particularly of the love of the Father because the verse says “God so loved * * that He gave His * * SON.” Let us then think of God, the Lover, for a few moments.

1. The common conception of God. To the carnal mind, God is often a tyrant who is driving men to hell. The heathen spend much of their time trying to propitiate an angry God. The medicine men and the dancers of wild tribes all imagine that God is a God of terror. We have read of as many as thirty-six thousand babes who have been ruthlessly murdered in order to appease the imaginary wrath of the Almighty. In India the babes are thrown into the Ganges with the same argument. Even in a so-called Christian country, and sometimes in pulpits, God is described as a God of wrath, while His Son, Christ, is pictured as seeking to placate His anger, and to induce Him to love sinful men. Not for one moment would we overlook the fact of “the wrath of God” being “revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” However, by the side of this we would place the God of love, who was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. Even in John 3:16 there is a vision of the wrath of God in the word, perish. However, the verse, as a whole, is love superabounding over wrath. It is love finding the way out, and showing how God can be just and yet the Justifier of those who believe.
2. God’s part in redemption. God knew that man would sin, and therefore before He created him, He gave Jesus Christ to die for sin. The Bible says that Christ was “delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” He was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” God the Father is the great Lover of men. While He is a holy God, and cannot receive into His presence the unclean; while He is a just God, and cannot justify the guilty, yet He planned redemption in such a way that He could satisfy the righteous demands of the Law, uphold the honor of His justice, and save the lost. In all of this, one thing is seen, and that is our next point.
3. God, the Lover of men. As we think of the Almighty, the Creator, the Provider of the human race, we think of Him with a love that absolutely surpasses knowledge. It is in the Book of Titus that we find these words, “But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared * * according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” In this Scripture the Father and the Son are spoken of as our Saviour. We think of Jesus loving us, and He did, but God loved us supremely. I. “GOD SO LOVED,” OR THE DEPTH OF HIS LOVE (John 3:16) “So” is the biggest little word in the Bible. Included in the word “so” are all of the agonies of the Cross, and all of the riches of God’s grace; in the gift of His Son, are all the depths, the heights, the breadths, and lengths of grace. In Ephesians 3:18-19 Paul is praying for the saints that they may “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” Did you ever try to fathom an unfathomable depth? Did you ever try to know the unknowable? That is just what Paul prayed we might do. After his prayer he said, “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory.” How the little word “so” remains with us. We revel in its beauty. The love of God is a love that knows no end. It is a love that never fails. It is a love that loves unto the end. Many waters cannot quench His love. Neither can the floods drown it. This should all be true of our love to Him. It is certainly true of His love to us. “Having loved His own * * He loved them unto the end.” To know Him is to love Him, because our love is born of His love. We love Him because He first loved us. Because of His love, we ought also to love one another. O what love now enraptures my soul, O what grace doth my spirit control; For the Saviour is mine, and His love-light doth shine; And the billows of joy o’er me roll. O My Saviour is more than a friend, And His love knows no change to the end; ‘Neath the smile of His face, and the wealth of His grace, All the beauties of Heaven do blend. II. THE WORLD— THE OBJECT OF HIS LOVE It is easy for us who are saved to want to monopolize God’s love. That God loved us, we know. That we love Him, we know. However, the love of Joh 3:16 is His own all-inclusive love. It is His love to all of the world.
4. God’s love to Israel set forth. In the Old Testament we read concerning Israel these words: “[He] did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; * * but because the Lord loved you.” Here is a gripping statement, God did not love Israel because of what Israel was numerically, nor in any other way. He loved them because He loved them. There is something about the love of God that is indescribable and incomprehensible. When God tried to tell His people why He loved them He simply said because He loved them. Call “because” a woman’s reason, if you want to, but here it is God’s reason.
5. God’s love to the Church set forth. Christ loved the Church, and bought it with His Blood. “For we know the love which God hath toward us.” In our Scripture for today there is much of the love of God toward His own. God loves, because God is love. God manifested His love toward us.
6. God’s love to the world set forth. In Romans 5:8 is this statement. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In Revelation 1:5 is a verse that is, perhaps, still more striking: “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own Blood.” That is, God loved us before He washed us. He loved me when, a sinner, I trampled on His love, He loved me still, though straying, I spurned His Home above; And still He loved; and loving, For me He bled and died, Then loving on and wooing, He drew me to His side. III. HE GAVE HIS SON— THE GIFT OF HIS LOVE When we speak of the supreme Lover, we delight in speaking of the manifestations of His love, of the gift of His love, and of how He proves His love to us.
7. He loved us and gave all things richly to enjoy. When God created the Heavens and the earth, He commanded the earth to bring forth fruit. When God filled the earth with beasts and birds, fish and creeping things, in all of this He was working for man. He was storing the earth, and even the air with everything which man would need, and He saw that it was good.
8. He loved and gave us the Word. What a marvelous gift it is, God’s love letter is God’s revelation of things to come, God’s expression of His heart toward men.
9. He loved and gave us the Holy Ghost. In Luke 11:1-54 we read, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” What a gift is the Paraclete!
10. He loved and gave us His Son. He gave Him as a teacher. He gave Him as a healer. Jesus went about doing good. All of this was the gift of God. The supreme gift of the Son, however, was that He gave the Son to be our Sin-bearer. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” IV. “"— THE EXTENT OF HIS LOVE There is one great joy, and that is that the love of God is all-inclusive. Rich and poor, peer and pauper, good and bad— all come under the word, “whosoever.” An old blacksmith was trying to read John 3:16. When he came to the word, “whosoever,” his knowledge of letters was too circumscribed. He could not make the word out. He read, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that * *,” and then he desired so much to know the next word. He laid his book aside awaiting the return of his daughter from school. He put his finger on the word, when she came in, and said, “What is this, daughter?” She said, “It is ‘whosoever,’ and it means me, or you, or anybody else.” He clapped his finger down on the word as though it might get away, and said, “Thank God, that means me!”
11. Whosoever signifies that Christ tasted death for every man. No man is lost because there was no provision for his being found. No man is lost because his sins knew no atonement, Christ died for all.
12. Whosoever means that God sent His messengers to every man. The command was, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” None are excluded. “None are excluded thence But those who do themselves exclude; Welcome the learned, the polite, The ignorant, the rude.”
13. Whosoever includes every son of Adam. It is an all-embracing word. It is not a question of whether you are invited, it is a question of whether you want to believe. Sin and shame, in Him will find a Saviour who can save to the uttermost. V. IN HIM, OR THE OF HIS LOVE
14. There are some who spurn God’s love as manifested in Christ. Isaiah 53:1-12 must stand before us as an exponent, not alone of God’s saving grace, but of man’s sinfulness of heart. Isaiah 53:3 says, “We hid as it were our faces from Him; * * we esteemed Him not. * * We did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. * * We have turned every one to his own way.” Oh, how vile is the heart that rejects the Son of God! If men in their sin were rejecting an enemy, it would be different. In the second chapter of Romans there is a statement like this: “Not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” The man who despiseth God, despises the riches of His goodness, of His forbearance, and of His long-suffering.
15. Those who accept His love. Not all spurn it. In Acts it is told how “some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.” To believe in Him, is to turn to Him. We believe it was Robert L. Stevenson who wrote, “Oh, my friend, teach me to be thine.” The story is told how when Caesar saw Brutus, his own familiar friend, come to him with a dagger, it quite vanquished him. How can we help but love Christ? How can we refrain from believing Him? “We love Him, because He first loved us.” VI. “SHOULD NOT PERISH”— THE OF HIS LOVE
16. Men are under Satan’s power. Jesus Christ came to open the prison bars, and to set the captive free. This was God’s gift, and He does not want men to remain trapped by the devil.
17. Men are sin-driven. There are not only dangers from without, which engulf sinners, but there is the power of the flesh within, the sinful self that holds men captive. God loved us, and gave Christ to deliver us so that we should not perish under the reign of self.
18. Men are hell-bound. The wicked shall be cast into hell, and all nations that forget God. God loved us and gave Jesus Christ, His Son, that we might not perish, and become engulfed in the powers and darkness of the pit. We delight in that wonderful story of the Good Shepherd who went out after the sheep which was lost. He stayed out until he found it, and when he found it he put it upon his shoulders, and brought it home rejoicing. When we think of the love of God in Christ, we think of a love that will not let us perish, that will not let us go. “O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee; I give Thee back the life I owe, That in Thine ocean depths its flow May richer, fuller be.” Let us close with that wonderful statement which was written by the Holy Ghost, “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.” This is the love of God which assures us that we will never perish. VII. " LIFE,” OR THE CLIMAX OF HIS LOVE How unfathomable is the word, “everlasting.” Some one has suggested that eternity might be described by a bird which carried the grains from every seashore to some distant planet, and this one grain each year until all was gone, and then eternity would just have begun. This life is everlasting.
19. There is included the city of gold, the new Jerusalem, the new heavens, and the new earth. These will be the abode of the saints forevermore. We shall dwell where sin and sorrow, sighing and sickness, penury and pain, can never enter. We shall dwell in the city of light. We shall walk in the Garden of God, and eat of the fruit of the tree of life, of the tree which bears twelve manner of fruit. We shall pass down by the river of the water of life, clear as crystal.
20. There is included the reunion of the saints. This is for all those who are in Christ, they shall live forever together, knowing as they are known forevermore. From the east, and from the west; from the north and from the south, they will come, and sit down together in the Kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with the redeemed.
21. There is included God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. No more of separation; no more of isolation, but eternal fellowship. AN Love is Heaven’s great gift. God’s love in its endurance is well illustrated by a mother’s love. The end came happily to Mrs. Ellen Brown because the son for whom she had waited and watched for ten years was at her side. Today he followed her to the grave. Everybody in Newburgh knew the sad-faced little woman who had haunted railroad stations and boat landings for a decade. Often she went across to Fishkill to watch the arrival of the New York Central trains. “I am waiting for my son,” she told those who questioned her. “He will come back to me some day,” Richard Brown was only seventeen when he left his home. His mother never heard from him. A month ago Mrs. Brown became grievously ill and was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital. The doctors knew that she would not leave it alive. Each morning she asked whether there was news from her son. They knew that it was the longing to see him that kept her alive. A week ago Richard Brown returned to Newburgh. He went to the hospital. There was no surprise in the little mother’s face, but only a great joy. From that time she failed rapidly. She died with her boy’s hand in hers, with peace and happiness in her heart. — J. W. C.