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be the case, there it is, take it, and do not trouble about repaying me. Should you be able to make it up again, well and good, if not, never mind." On this, my mother said," Yes, I do most certainly need it, my kind friend; all last night I too was awake, crying to God for help. Yesterday there came three letters, telling us that all our boys would be dismissed unless the money for their board is cleared at once." it really so!" exclaimed the innkeeper, who was a noble hearted and spiritual Christian man. "How strange and wonderful! Now I am doubly glad I asked you to come!" Then, opening the chest, he produced three weighty packets, and handed them to her with a prayer that God's blessing might rest upon the gift. She accepted it with the simple words, " May God in blessing make up to you this service of Christian sympathy; for you have acted as the steward of One who has promised not even to leave the giving of a cup of cold water unrewarded."

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Husband and children were eagerly awaiting her at home, and those three dismal letters still lay open on the table, when the mother, who had quitted that study in such deep emotion the day before, stepped up to her husband, radiant with joy. On each letter she laid a roll of money, and then cried, "Look, there it is! And now believe that faith

in God is no empty idea."

(To be continued).

Does Sin Wear Out?

BY G. ROGERS.

THIS question has been suggested by the modern advocacy of the limited duration of punishment for sin, and consequently the limited duration of its guilt. In other words, sin is supposed from its own nature to be perishable, and in time to wear itself out. On no other principle could the annihilation of the sinner take place. Soon as the period of the termination of existence arrives, sin is reduced to the lowest point in which it can exist in a conscious being; and certainly must be far less than when the term of suffering began; and consequently must have gone through a process of gradual decay. The question here is not concerning the immortality of the soul itself, but concerning the immortality of sin. If sin be beyond the decaying influence of time, so must the sinner be, for there is the same reason for its hold upon the sinner at the remotest period of existence as at first. Sin itself therefore is supposed by the limited theory of punishment to be subject to decay, and to wear itself out. But can sin wear out?

Combinations of matter wear out. All metals wear out by use. Granite rocks are worn by the action of surrounding elements. The waters wear away the stones. All material things are subject to decay. In those forms of matter in which provision is made for continual waste, as in vegetable and mere animal life, the tendency to dissolution ultimately prevails. Every plant and animal has its term of existence, at the close of which it yields to its own diminished powers.

The

human frame, even in its present state of continual waste and reproduction, could not be designed for immortality. Flesh and blood could not, at any time or under any circumstances, inherit the kingdom of heaven. An immortal body would have been the reward alike of innocence, as it now is of faith in a risen and glorified Lord. All this, however, relates to forms of matter, and not to matter itself. In the midst of incessant changes, we have no evidence that atoms themselves become less, or are subject to decay. We say not that they are indestructible, but that they are not known to be destroyed.

Vegetable life may be arrested in its progress, but would never wear itself out. It has the power of animating matter, and assimilating it to itself for the production of a certain result; but, instead of forfeiting its own life, it imparts it to other seeds of the same kind; in some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred-fold. One grain of wheat transmits its life to numerous others, and each one of these in turn to as many more, and those to others in endless succession. Thus God gave "the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself, after his kind." In this instance, the effect appears to be greater than the cause, inasmuch as each of the new seeds produced possesses exactly the same kind and degree of vitality as the one parent seed. If vegetable life does not of itself wear out, how much less the soul of man.

The same may be affirmed of animal life. Animals convey their own life with its peculiar instincts to others, and though they die, the life that is in them is not of necessity exhausted, but, uninjured by wear and tear, may be reproduced in an interminable series of other forms. The natural life of all such is singularly derived from the life of their first parent. The different identities here, as in plants and animals, do not affect the present enquiry, which relates simply to the tendency of life itself to wear itself out.

We enquire next: Does mind naturally wear itself out? It is in continual exercise in all men, and in some to an incalculable extent; but does it become enfeebled in itself, and diminished by the greatest use? We have every reason to suppose that in proportion to its exercise its real strength is increased. The whole symptoms of decay are from the physical organisation, through which alone in its present condition it can act. How do we know this? From the fact of its incapacity for vigorous action in certain bodily infirmities, and the restoration of its full vigour when the bodily infirmity is gone; and from the fact of frequent occurrence of a lucid interval immediately prior to dissolution, in which the whole strength of intellect has returned.

We enquire now: Is there decay in the moral world? Do moral principles wear out? Are good and evil subject to the ravages of time, or are they independent of them? Dependent upon times and circumstances they may be for their acts; but is the moral character of those acts limited to the time of their commission? Is the good or evil limited to the act, or is it not rather independent of it, of which the act is but the sign? If the moral character of the act survives the act itself, is that too subject to decline only by a more gradual process? Does time, in fact, diminish the guilt of sin? We speak of a fault committed by another some years ago as less condemnatory than if it

had been of recent occurrence; not because it is less criminal in itself, but because we hope it may have been repented of and forgiven. Time has a softening influence upon men, which applies not to God. His law takes no account of time in its demands. It is not intensified by haste, nor tempered by delay. Neither is the responsibility of moral agents diminished by delay. Sin, therefore, as a moral act cannot wear out. It cannot wear out in this life, while its judgment lingers and its damnation slumbers; neither can it wear itself out hereafter, or be consumed in its own fires. If sin wears out in its punishment, it must be either in its own nature or in the mind of God respecting it. If in its own nature, no new sins must be committed during that punishment, and the punishment itself must be expiatory of former transgressions; both of which are contrary to reason and to the Scriptures. There is no reason to suppose that punishment alters the disposition to sin against God any more than to sin against man. The same disposition to sin, as a rule, remains during its punishment. Suffering for sin does not lessen the moral tendency to sin. It has often increased it. If sin be the transgression of the law, and the whole law is included in love to God with all the heart, and love to others as to ourselves, it is impossible to suppose that any other than a sinful disposition can remain in the midst of judicial suffering. The supposition that punishment is expiatory is equally untenable. No man expiates the crime morally for which he has suffered the whole penalty of the law in human society. There can be no merit in that which he was compelled to endure. The sole merit is in the law by which the penalty was enforced. Expiatory sufferings must be voluntarily endured; and to speak of merit in that which is extorted from a rebellious will, is manifestly absurd.

As sin cannot wear out in its own nature, neither can it wear out in the mind of God respecting it. So long as it continues the same, it must be looked upon by him with the same detestation, and receive from him the same tokens of his displeasure. Time with him is of no

account in estimating the guilt of sin, except as its evil consequences become more apparent to others. No sin is lessened by the remotest distance of time. In this respect, one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. If the demerit of sin can wear out, why not the merit of obedience too? Both are moral principles, and they are the counterpart of each other. What then becomes of unsinning angels? The merit of their obedience dies out at the same time as the demerit of those that had sinned. Limit the hold of the moral law upon the one, and you limit its hold upon the other. If sin be less punished, righteousness must be less rewarded.

Further, if sin wears out, redemption from sin must wear out too; the grace of redemption, the price of redemption, the glory of redemption, must all wear out in time; inasmuch as the value of redemption consists in the character and duration of that from which it redeems. When the period arrives at which sin would have worn itself out, redemption from sin must cease, and redemption from annihilation must be all that remains. As annihilation is less than living only to be intensely miserable, the redemption must be less, and must be decreased in its value from the very moment that it began. According to this theory, the glory of the Lamb in the midst of the throne must gradually

fade away; the obligations of the redeemed to it must become less and less; their songs, instead of rising in fervour, must become less rapturous and triumphant; and redemption from sin and hell must become in the end a thing of the past. The most glorious of the Divine works in its principal effects would, in time, become completely worn out.

Have we any instance in which sin can be discovered to be wearing out, or its own nature to fail? There is one at least in which no wearing out has yet been detected. We refer to the first and consequently the oldest sin in the world. It was for one sin of our first parent that man was turned out of Paradise, and the whole race lost its innocence, and became subject to sin and death. We do not conclude that his other sins had this effect. All is to be attributed to that one sin. What now has been its effect? Has it lost any of its power? Have there been any symptoms of its decay? Has man become less corrupt in his origin than he was at first? Is there less of the old Adam in his infancy, and greater natural tendencies to good? Has there been any marked diminution in the effect of original sin? What! not after the wear and tear of six thousand years upon the whole race of man? Not the least perceptible difference as yet? Then, how long would it be before the least symptom of decay would appear? How long before an evident diminution would take place? How long before its influence would be entirely exhausted? If one sin brings before us such effects, undiminished by extent or time, when would the whole sins of one man be worn out, or exhibit the least symptom of decay? Yet the new theory is that sin will wear itself out. Do material atoms wear out? Does life in plants and animals wear itself out? Does mind literally wear out? Does crime against human laws ever wear out? Has the oldest sin known on the earth shown the least symptom of wearing out? Where then are the evidences that sin, in every man and in the whole creation, will in due time wear itself out? This may be beautiful in theory, but, we fear, this is all that can be said on its behalf.

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God's Almoners,the Cidows and the Poor."

"I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee."-God to Elijah. HAVE not been so much surprised at the wonderful blessing which has rested upon the Pastors' College, since the following fact gave me an insight into the characters and motives of some, at least, of its supporters. At the time of which I write, I was superintendent of a Sunday-school in a densely populated district of South London. One Lord's-day afternoon I observed that two little boys, among our most regular scholars, looked pale and sad. Though poorly clad, their faces and their pinafores were scrupulously clean. On enquiring the cause of their dejected looks, Johnny, the elder boy, would give no answer, but some big tears would force their way. Wishing to get at the facts, I asked the younger boy if they had had dinner that day? Looking up into my face with his large blue eyes, somewhat inflamed with the "hearty cry" he had been quietly having at home, Freddy said, "No, sir. Father's dead, and mother has been so ill last week she could not

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work at the mangle, and grandmother is very ill at home, too; and there are five of us; but, please, sir, mother asked us not to tell any one." In a few minutes the teachers had enabled me to run round with twelve or fourteen shillings to the widowed mother. I found her very weak, from toil and insufficient food; but in so peaceful a frame of mind as to surprise me. When I handed her our little timely aid, she said, “Ah, sir, I cannot decline it; though having been better off" (which I knew was true), "it comes hard to be dependent upon others. Yet this is evidently a direct gift from God in answer to our prayers. Oh! I knew he was only keeping us waiting a little longer than usual, to try our faith; but I was sure the promise would come true somehow. I will tell you why I felt so sure. A week or two back I was ill, just in this way, and when Saturday night came, we had just sixpence left, and nothing in the house to eat. Some money was owing to me, but it was now eleven o'clock, and nothing had come in. My faith in my heavenly Father had been sustained well up till eleven o'clock; but then I was obliged to go into the yard and give way to my feelings, so that my aged mother and the children might not see me weep. When I came back, my eldest boy, Johnny, said, Mother, have you been telling God about us?' I said, 'I feel as if I can't pray, my dear.' Then, I will for you,' he said. So we all knelt down there, almost in the dark, and he prayed, O Lord, thou canst do everything; please make this sixpence we have left into half-a-crown, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen!' When we rose, I said, 'Now, Johnny, go to the baker's at the top of the court, and get a loaf with the sixpence.' I ought to tell you," she said, "that this shop is kept by a man notorious for wickedness, bad temper, and foul language. Often he has called me' Methodist,' canting hypocrite, etc., and has made coarse jokes about my poverty. Well, as soon as Johnny got into the shop (it was between eleven and twelve o'clock) the baker bawled out, Jack, what's mother got in the cupboard? My boy's heart was too full to speak, so he covered his face with his hands. But the baker said, Now then, none o' that. Hold up your pinafore! And reaching down as much stale bread as John could carry home, he returned the sixpence, and sent him away. With that sixpence, we got a mouthful of nice meat for granny and me. So you see, sir, I've been thinking, that if God can feed his children by the hands of the godless, like this, it would be shockingly sinful to distrust him any more." I told her that her simple narrative had touched my heart, and asked where she had learned to trust a reconciled God in that way. (At that time I knew little about the Tabernacle, its pastor, or the College.) This "widow indeed" replied, "I have learned to be truly independent from the words, and far more from the acts, of my dear pastor. Have you not heard how the College for young ministers is supported?" she asked. I said I had not. "Why," she said, "it is all kept going by faith and prayer; and oh, sir, I count it no small privilege to put my trifle into the College box whenever I can get to the house of God, because I feel that I am living just as the College lives, and I wish in this way to tell my God what confidence I have in his word." This statement made me curious to enquire about the Pastors' College, and I soon became acquainted with the details of its strange and momentous history. I began to expect great things from young men who were

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