THE KING’S BUSINESS
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as inspired by the same God who an swered the prayer of a devout assem bly by an unexpected Pillar of Fire. SERMONS SAVED. And many other signs confirmed this as God’s own hand. Let me mention one. I had in the tower of the church building a large mass of manuscript matter of great value to me in preaching. The tower of the church acted like a chimney, and there the flames were hottest. The study table was destroyed and noth ing that could be consumed escaped except that manuscript matter, which was found unharmed in the ruins. No philosophy of mine can account for its rescue; but it impressed every one as showing the hand of God! Mr. Geo. Muller was so impressed with these events as showing the un questionable interposition of God that at his request I sent forth a tract called the “Pillar of Fire,” in which a simple narrative of the Lord’s deal ings with me and my people is set forth: I In Isaiah lv:13, we read: “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fii tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” God has just said that “as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall nol return unto me Void, but it shall ac complish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Other signs may. answer a tem- oorary purpose and may-pass away ; but here is an everlasting sign: “the power of the gospel to make the soil, hitherto fruitful only in evil, fertile
with good.” Instead of the thorn, etc., i. e., the noblest and most beauti ful and useful trees shall take the place of the most unprofitable and of fensive plants. The idea is elsewhere expressed, by the opening of rivers in the arid desert, and its transformation into the garden of the Lord. Here is God’s perpetual memorial, the endur ing sign, the miracle of the ages. These revolutions in individual and §ocial life wrought by the gospel are more wonderful displays of God’s power than the giving of hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind and life to the dead. HUME PERPLEXED. Hume, the prince of skeptics, was constrained to confess that there was one thing that he could not explain by his deistical philosophy, and that was “a Christian life.” Bunsen said to his English wife, when dying, “My dear, in thy face I have seen the Eternal.” It was said of the saintly Fenelon that you could not be in his company two hours without wishing yourself a Christian. If the fruits of Christianity, con found the skeptic in a Christian land, what shall be said of them on heathen soil? Were I to come, into contact with a man honestly asking for light, and willing candidly to examine whether a supernatural element were at work in this world, I would set him to studying modern missionary history. These are facts by the hun dred, in the transformation of individ uals and whole peoples, that are as much a sign of God’s power as the turning of Moses’ hand to a leprous white, or back instantly to its original color and condition. But;of all the examples that could be cited, let us in closing glance at two, one of individual transformation, the other of a community. Sau Quala was, one of the first converts among the degraded Karens. From the low-
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