The Beginning of an Endless Friendship. About a quarter of four one afternoon, three young men were standing together on a road leading down to a swift-running river. It was an old road, beaten down hard by thousands of feet through hundreds of years. It led down to the river, and then along its bank through a village scatteringly nestled by the fords of the river. The young men were intently absorbed in conversation. One of them was a man to... more...

CHOKED CHANNELS. An Odd Distinction. A few years ago I was making a brief tour among the colleges of Missouri. I remember one morning in a certain college village going over from the hotel to take breakfast with some of the boys, and coming back with one of the fellows whom I had just met. As we walked along, chatting away, I asked him quietly, "Are you a christian, sir?" He turned quickly and looked at me with an odd, surprised expression in... more...

The Lone Man Who Went Before A Call to Friendship. One day I watched two young men, a Japanese and an American, pacing the deck of a Japanese liner bound for San Francisco. Their heads were close together and bent down, and they were talking earnestly. The Japanese was saying, "Oh, yes, I believe all that as a theory, but is there power to make a man live it?" He was an officer of the ship, one of the finest boats on the Pacific. The... more...

LIFE--the first glance would hardly find it on this African hillside in the summertime. The hot wind of the desert has passed over it, and the spring beauty of iris and orchid, asphodel and marigold, has vanished. Nothing is to be seen but the mellow golden-brown of the grass, broken by blue-green aloe leaves, and here and there a deep madder head of dried-up fennel. Yet life is reigning, not death, all the while; it is there, in infinitely... more...

LIFE. There is no so constant and satisfactory a Pleasure, to those who are capable of it, as Rational Conversation gives: And to me, depriv'd of that Enjoyment, the remembrance thereof, is, in my present Solitude, the most delightful Entertainment: Wherein some of my leisure hours will not, I hope, be mispent, should this engage me to prosecute such Thoughts as were lately suggested to me by others. The which taking their rise from a particular... more...

YOUTH AND AFTER "And Terah died in Haran." This bit of prosaic information becomes suggestive by the emphasis of one word: "And Terah died in Haran." This was not his birthplace, but here he ended his days, and that for a reason over which it is worth our while to pause. "And Terah died in Haran." What of that? All people have died somewhere, who have lived and are dead. When we first meet this man, he was a citizen of no mean city. Ur of the... more...

CHAPTER I. MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE.   "Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;  Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth;  For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice,  And whoso suffers most hath most to give."        —The Disciples. According to our Lord's teaching, we can make the most of our life by losing it. He says that losing the life... more...

We have only one life to live, only one. Think of this for a moment. Here we are in this world of time making the journey of life. Each day we are farther from the cradle and nearer the grave. Solemn thought. See the mighty concourse of human lives; hear their heavy tread in their onward march. Some are just beginning life's journey; some are midway up the hill, some have reached the top, and some are midway down the western slope. But where are... more...

HOW TO BECOME LIKE CHRIST. "But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."—2 COR. iii. 18 (Revised Version). I suppose there is almost no one who would deny, if it were put to him, that the greatest possible attainment a man can make in this world is likeness to The Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly no one would deny that... more...

Hidden From the Prudent In the latter part of January, 1915, I visited for the first time the Ute Indian Reservation in the northeastern part of Utah and drove with the missionary to Ouray, where the older Indians were gathered for the monthly issue of rations by the Government. That evening in the log store, with some fifty or sixty Indians gathered around the stove on boxes or seated on the counters under the flickering light of the lanterns... more...