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E. D. Daniels with contributions from Charles Prospero Fagnini

If the garb of profession and mere doing good to be seen of men were removed, and all concerned were to appear as they are in the sight of heaven, it might be found that the criminal who stands behind prison bars is far less a thief than many a respectable church-goer who sits in a luxurious pew. The prisoner is a thief before men, but he may be forgiven by the Lord. The crime may have been committed under exceedingly trying circumstances, and may be external to his real self. He may condemn himself on account of it. He may not sanction it in his heart in the least. It may not be in his ruling love at all. But the thief in the sight of God is so intentionally, in his heart. He may not have appropriated money, but he is really no better than the one who has, because he has in his heart that principle which would lead him to do so if it served his purpose. The natural man is too dull to understand this. He thinks that if he is outwardly respectable it is all that is required.

E. D. Daniels.
New Church Messenger.

The transgressor's life is hard in its deprivations. The question is sometimes raised whether the sinner does not after all, get more out of the world than the true disciple. He who has turned from evil to live with God never raises that question. He knows that the earth, without peace of heart, without joy in right and sympathy with good, without the happiness of God's presence and delight of service, is a hard and narrow and unhappy place. The true and full inheritance of the earth belongs to the children of God, and to no others.

Far back, also, in every transgressor's consciousness lies the hard trial of self-contempt. He may not admit it to his thought. Conscience may be ill-educated and under careful discipline: but in the moments when he sees clearly, the sinner is self-judged. God has let us sit upon the seat of counsel, and we see what value we have put upon our souls in bartering with evil.—The Congregationalist.

The "good old Gospel" is not what this or that man, in some past age, or all the preachers of all the ages together, proclaimed, but what our Lord and his disciples, and Paul and other of the New Testament writers declared to be the "good news of the kingdom." It is to them, not to their fallible interpreters, that we should go with humble and prayerful hearts for illumination. Not that the research and learning and pious exposition of good men, diligent students of the Word, in past centuries should be despised; but "the good old Gospel" is the gospel of the New Testament. and to that divine source of inspiration and knowledge we should constantly return. It alone is the touch-stone by which to test the genuineness of all attempted interpretations of it.—The Examiner.

Religion is meant to direct conduct, and the smallest affairs of life are to come under its imperial control, and the only way by which a man can get any good out of his Christianity is by living it. It is when he sets to work on the principles of the Gospel, that the Gospel proves itself to be a reality in his blessed experience. It is when he does the smallest duties from the great motives. that these great motives are strengthened by exercise, as every motive is.—Alexander Maclaren, D.D., Litt.D.

The Homiletic Review.

I believe in God as the source of all love, so that wherever there is love, there God is.

Prof. Charles Prospero Fagnini, D.D. The Independent.

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