"Heaven and earth shall pass away . . . "

The instability of all mundane things is suggested by the following account, which may also remind us of the utterance of Jesus: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away."

"When, in 1890, Germany bartered away Zanzibar in exchange for Heligoland, great was the rejoicing," says Shipping Illustrated (New York). "Much concern is now being manifested in Germany owing to the relentless attack of the sea, which has already reduced the island's area nearly twenty-five percent since it came under the German flag. At this rate the little island will, in another half-century, have melted entirely away. The North Sea has been from time immemorial an avaricious land-grabber. The Dogger Bank once reared its head above the surface, a fact proved by the bones of animals occasionally brought up in the fishermen's nets. The eastern coast of England has suffered severely from its insatiable appetite. Dunwick, an important seaport during the Middle Ages, is now a part of the sea-bottom, and fishes and other marine denizens occupy the one-time habitation of men. Visitors to Felixstowe, once a Roman colony and now a modern seaside resort, opposite Harwich, have pointed out to them a rock a mile out to sea, on which the old church formerly stood. The Kaiser may yet live to see his cherished possession torn from his grasp."

Low Vitality

       Just as the body when at a low vitality is susceptible to colds, so it may as truly be said of the soul, when impoverished it falls prey to temptation and sin.

       The common theory that all colds are the result of exposure is a great mistake, inasmuch as exposure is not the direct cause of the trouble. Colds are caused by hostile microbes, or bacteria, which gain a foothold at a time when our vitality has been lowered by exposure. But there are many quarters of the globe where one finds it impossible to catch cold, simply by reason of the fact that there is no cold to catch.

        ''Peary and his men during the months they spent in the arctic regions were immune from cold, tho they were constantly enduring exposure of every kind. They passed day after day in clothes so saturated with perspiration that by day they froze into a solid mass, so to speak, and the clothes cut into their flesh. And at night, in their sleeping-bags, the first hour was spent in thawing out. They returned to civilization none the worse in health, but soon contracted severe colds upon reaching there. People were much amused by the press accounts of how Commander Peary had taken cold while proceeding to dine with a friend in a suburb of Washington, the taxicab which was conveying him and his wife having broken down during a snow flurry in December.'' Harper's Weekly.

He went on: ''What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly." Mark 7: 20:23

Ahead of Circumstance

       In life there are those who keep just ahead of the breaking wave, and others who halt and it engulfs them. Marshall P. Wilder describes in the extract below the skill of the Hawaiian natives with their canoes:

       We donned bathing-suits and took a surf ride. This is the national sport and, being at all times sufficiently thrilling, must be taken in a high surf, a tremendous experience. The boats are long, deep and very narrow canoes, with an outrigger at one side to keep them from tipping.
       Two natives, and they must be skilled, usually operate these canoes. Three or four passengers at a time are taken out, the natives rowing with broad paddles a quarter or half mile from the shore, where they wait for a large wave. With the nicest precision they keep ahead of it, just as it breaks, and are carried smoothly in, poised on its crest. I sat facing the stern, and the experience was something to remember, the swift bird-like swoop of the canoe, with the white, seething wall of water behind it, apparently just about to engulf us. After we were safely on shore again they told us stories of how the wave, if the rowers miscalculate, will break over the canoe, driving it to the bottom.

Prayer Produces Song

       There is a beautiful suggestion of the way prayer soothes our fears, comforts our hearts, cheers the soul, and awakens music and song, in Luke's description, given in the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, of the experience of Paul and Silas in the dungeon at Philippi. Tho they were wounded and bruised and hungry, and uncomfortable with their chains, they prayed to God in the midnight, and afterward their hearts were so full of joy that they could not help but sing. And it is well to note what they sang. It was not " Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound!" but the other note altogether, "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow." Song flows out of prayer as naturally as a spring gushes out of a mountainside full of treasures of the melted snow.

How Pearls Are Made

        The finding of pearls in some parts of New York State, as well as in many Southern lakes and streams, has brought to notice again the strange way in which pearls are made. A grain of sand is sucked in by these fresh-water clams with their food. Every nine months the clam throws off a milky secretion, which forms a new coating of mother-of-pearl inside the shell: white, blue, or pink. A coating of this substance forms around the intruding grain of sand, which must be a constant annoyance to the clam, and thus in course of time the pearl is formed. So soul-pearls are made by patience under trying circumstances. 

"In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trails.'' 1 Peter 1:6

"Ye are the Light of the World"

"You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden." Matthew 5:14 NKJV

        An English clergyman relates the following incident: "During a voyage to India I sat one dark evening in my cabin feeling thoroughly unwell, as the sea was rising fast and I was but a poor sailor. Suddenly the cry of 'Man overboard!' made me spring to my feet. I heard a trampling overhead, but resolved not to go on deck, lest I should interfere with the crew in their efforts to save the poor man. 'What can I do?' I asked myself, and instantly unhooking my lamp, I held it near the top of my cabin and close to my bull's-eye window, that its light might shine on the sea, and as near the ship as possible. In a half minute's time I heard the joyful cry 'It's all right; he's safe,' upon which I put my lamp in its place. The next day, however, I was told that my little lamp was the sole means of saving the man's life. It was only by the timely light which shone upon him that the knotted rope could be thrown so as to reach him. 'Let your light so shine.'''

• Let Your Light Shine - Matthew 5:14-16
• How to let your light shine bright by Lisa Nichols
• Matthew 5:14-16 - Let Your Light Shine

The Conquest of Fear...

"Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, but being resolutely minded in a just cause. The brave man is not he who feels no fear, for that were stupid and irrational, but he whose noble soul subdues its fear, and bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from." Ferrold.

•  He Calls Us To Be Witnesses (pdf.)
• Peace in the Dark Places
• I Could Not Help Him Die
• Journey To Heaven
  

A Shelter In The Time of Storm

        "I found this hymn in a small paper published in London, called "The Postman." It was said to be a favorite song of the fishermen on the north coast of England, and they were often heard singing it as they approached their harbors in the time of storm. As the hymn was set to a weird minor tune, I decided to compose one that would be more practical, one that could be more easily sung by the people." Sanky

Words by V. J. Charlesworth, Music by Ira D. Sankey

Reminiscences of the Past In Heaven

       The reminiscences of the past will be sources of profit and gladness. After a success we look back with joy upon the trials over which we triumphed. After having made a perilous ocean voyage the remembrance brings gladness. Youth and childhood, with their victories and defeats, joys and sorrows, who would wish obliterated from their memories? Man will never be grateful for sin, but will gladly remember that through the grace of God he triumphed over it. The very blackness of the sin will add glory to his victory. It is the rain dropping from the clouds and catching the rays of light  which give hues to the rainbow; so the tears and sorrows of the present life, catching the light from that new heaven and new earth, will add beauty and gladness to the experiences of that day. - Rev. R. S. Storrs, D. D.

• Heaven: It's Hope
• Heaven: The Future of Christians

Missionary Accomplishments

       "When the American missionaries came to the Sandwich Islands, they struck off the shackles from the whole race, breaking the power of the kings and chiefs. They set the common man free, elevated his wife to a position of equality with him, and gave a piece of land to each to hold forever. They set up schools and churches, and imbued the people with the spirit of the Christian religion. If they had had the power to augment the capacities of the people, they could have made them perfect; and they would have done it, no doubt.
      The missionaries taught the whole nation to read and write, with facility, in the native tongue. I don't suppose there is to-day a single uneducated person above eight years of age in the Sandwich Islands! It is the best educated country in the world, I believe. That has been all done by the American missionaries. And in a large degree it was paid for by the American Sunday-school children with their pennies. I know that I contributed." -- Samuel L. Clemens.

"How They Worship," Wow.

Openness Of Mind

       The Mediterranean is practically a tideless sea, and yet the visitor to its waters is puzzled at the discovery of what appears to be a tide. But the explanation is that there is a connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, so that what seems to be a tide at Gibraltar is simply the rolling waves from the tide of the mighty Atlantic into the sea that washes the shores of southern Europe and northern Africa. As long as the channel at the Straits of Gibraltar is open, so long will there be this rolling in, and so there will be a constant influx of blessing while communication with God is unhindered.

Christ Our Captain

       "Among the old war pictures I remember one of a captain of artillery bringing his battery into action. His whole soul was in the effort to rally his men and guns on the line. You could hear the thunderous roll of the wheels, crushing over all unevenness and hindrance, the frantic straining of the horses, the fearless, intense resolution of the men, and above all, the captain waving his sword, shouting his commands - but shot dead just as the guns wheel into line. Our Captain died rallying us, but He rose again, and He still has His dying enthusiasm of love for each one of us." - Franklin Noble, "Sermons in Illustration."

• The Storms of Life by J. Mike Minnix

Deep Things

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. Isaiah 55:8

       It is folly to think that only those things are of value to us which we can intellectually understand. Is the vast deep of the ocean nothing to me, since I can not move about freely and closely examine its depths? And if I must confess that 'way down are untold mysteries which human eye has never seen, what matters it? Can not I rejoice in the roar of the waves, in the ebb and flow of the tides, and in the flight of the clouds? Why will men insist, their poor, finite reasoning, on fathoming the deep things of God, instead of drinking to the full from the inexhaustible source of assurance and consolation? -- E. F. Stroter, "The Glory of the Body of Christ."

Adaptability

As an illustration of adaptability to circumstances and the willingness to take chances in order to achieve results of any kind, of the men who open up another country to civilization, a recent incident is instructive:

       A little schooner reached Seattle recently from Nome, on Bering Sea. She had made the voyage down during the most tempestuous season of the year in the North Pacific, and had survived storms which tried well-found steamships of the better class. Yet there was not a man on board, from the captain down, who had ever made a voyage at sea, save as passengers, on a boat running to Alaska. There were no navigating instruments on board save a compass and an obsolete Russian chart of the North Pacific.

       These men wanted to come out for the winter, and there was no other way within their means to accomplish the trip. They got hold of the schooner and they started with her. They were not seamen or navigators, simply handy men who were accustomed to doing things for themselves. This was out of the routine, but they did it.

       The men who made the voyage down from Nome in a little schooner without any previous knowledge of seamanship probably nothing remarkable in the feat. They were used to doing things that had to be done with the material that came to hand, whether they knew anything about how it should be done or not. Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Self-Conflict

       A friend once asked an aged man what caused him to complain so often at eventide of pain and weariness, "Alas," replied he, "I have every day so much to do. I have two falcons to tame, two hares to keep from running away, two hawks to manage, a serpent to confine, a lion to chain and a sick man to tend and wait upon."

       "Well, well," commented his friend, "you are busy indeed! But I didn't know that you had anything to do with a menagerie. How, then, do you make that out?"

       "Why," continued the old man, "listen. Two falcons are my eyes, which I must guard diligently; the two hares are my feet, which I must keep from walking in the ways of sin; the two hawks are my hands which I must train to work, that I may provide for myself and those dependent on me as well as for a needy friend occasionally; the serpent is my tongue, which I must keep ever bridled lest it speak unseemly; the lion is my heart, with which I have a continual fight lest evil things come out of it, and the sick man is my whole body, which is always needing my watchfulness and care. All this daily wears out my strength." Du Quoin Tribune

No Man's Land

       There is a peculiar propriety in the name "No Man's Land," which has been applied to the group of rocky snow-clad islands four hundred miles to the north of the North Cape of Norway, once spoken of as East Greenland, and appearing on all modern maps as Spitzbergen. Wintering on these islands is practically impossible to civilized man. There are myriad petrels and gulls and wild geese in summer. 

       For two centuries the whalers and sealers - Swedes, Danes, Dutch, Norwegians -frequented these islands in summer months. The right whale disappeared. The seals became fewer. Visits to the islands became less frequent. Now coal has been discovered in such beds as to justify civilization in taking cognizance of "No Man's Land."

       The United States accepted the invitation of Norway to take part in an international conference, at Christiana, to consider the government of Spitzbergen. Russia, Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and Denmark were invited. There is not much doubt that a form of government will be devised and a full agreement reached.

       This is a significant movement toward extending law in some form to every bit of territory on the earth's surface. A century hence it will perhaps be impossible to find a square foot of earth that can be called "No Man's Land." Brooklyn Eagle. (1910)

"The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise." Isaiah 43:20-21

       "Ever wonder what it's like to be on an Arctic expedition? This video gives you an intimate snapshot of a day in the life of one of our Spitsbergen voyages. Time spent in Spitsbergen is always unique from one day to the next. Epic, awesome and majestic, the Arctic region of Svalbard region is full of wildlife and amazing scenery just waiting for you. Come explore the Arctic and Antarctica with Quark Expeditions."

Mournful Memory

       Renan, in one of his books, recalls an old French legend of a buried city on the coast of Brittany. With its homes, public buildings, churches and thronged streets, it sank instantly into the sea. The legend says that the city's life goes on as before down beneath the waves. The fishermen, when in calm weather they row over the place, sometimes think they can see the gleaming tips of the church spires deep in the water, and fancy they can hear the chiming of the bells in the old belfries, and even the murmur of the city's noises. There are men who in their later years seem to have an experience like this. Their life of youthful hopes, dreams, successes and joys has been sunk out of sight, submerged in misfortunes and adversities and has vanished altogether. All that remains is a memory. In their discouragement they seem to hear the echoes of the old songs of hope and gladness, and to catch visions of the old beauty and splendor, but that is all. They have nothing real left. They have grown hopeless and bitter.

"Neither shall any who hope in you be ashamed." Psalm 25:3 (ABPE)

Faith Without Works

       A story is told of three prisoners who were captured by pirates. One of them was put in a boat without oars and pushed out into deep water. The boat sped along safely at first, but when a storm broke overhead, the frail craft was tossed upon a rock and the man was drowned. The second man was placed in a boat with one oar, but he made no progress. Finally, he drifted into a whirlpool and was never seen again. The third man was given a boat with two oars and he safely crossed to the other side, where he was received by friends.

       We are all sailors on the ocean of life bound for a harbor of safety whether we arrive in port or not. The unbeliever is the man in the boat without oars. The person who thinks that his faith without work will save him is the man the boat with only one oar. But the man who believes in God, and works out his salvation with fear and trembling, is the man in the boat with two oars. (text)

Faith Without Works is Dead: James 2:14-26 (NKJV)

    What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
      But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe‚ and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

     Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
      For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

• Faith Without Works by Dr. Lindstrom
• What is the relationship between faith and works?

Struggle

       Contending with the globe, we are like Jacob wrestling with the angel. The fight is long and hard amid the mystery and the darkness, and the great Power seems reluctant to bless us; but the breaking of the day comes, and we find ourselves blest with corn, wine, oil, purple, feasts, flowers. Ah! and with gifts far beyond those of basket and store--ripened intelligence, self-reliance, courage, skill, manliness, virtue. Of course, man suffers in the conflict, as the patriarch did. When we see the farm laborer bent double with rheumatism, or the collier mutilated by the explosion in the mine, or the grinder with his lung gone, or the weaver with his enfeebled physique, or the seaman prematurely old through his battle with wind and wave, or any of the million workers who carry pathetic signs of the arduousness of toil, we see the limp of the victorious wrestler. In the South Seas the natives lie on their backs and the bread-fruit drops into their mouths. But these make a poor show in the grand procession of the ages.

The law of life is truly severe which enjoins that man shall eat bread in the sweat of his face, but in this struggle for life our great antagonist is our great helper; we are leaving barbarism behind us; we are undergoing a magnificent transformation; we are becoming princes of God and heirs of all things.-- W. L. Watkinson, "The Transfigured Sackcloth."

Light And Activity

Those who would glow with the brightness of a blest life can not so shine unless they are luminous with activity.

We are passing along a country road on a dark evening and are arrested by seeing luminous points in the herbage at the foot of a hedgerow or side of a lane. We find on investigation that the beautiful little lights are emitted by glowworms. At first sight these appear to be stationary, but we find by patient waiting and watching that the little creatures are slowly moving as they shine and that each glowworm ceases to emit its lovely gleam directly when it stops moving. And in human life are not the bright lights of society, of the family, or the Church, those persons who are incessantly in action? The sluggard is too dull to shine; the energetic souls go sparkling on their way and charm as well as help.

Video by http://www.sciencefriday.com Fireflies communicate with a "language of light" that scientists still don't completely understand. James Lloyd and Marc Branham of the University of Florida, Gainesville, discuss unique flash patterns and times for some of the 2,000 types of fireflies that light up the summer nights. Produced by Emily V. Driscoll