The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-12-16

by my spirit God is pledged to our help. Weak, are we? Yes but God still makes use of the weak ones of this
 world to confound the mighty. There IS still power through prayer. When
 Ethelred, the Saxon king, invaded
 Wales, and was about to give battle to the Britons, he saw near the enemy a party of unarmed men. He asked who they were, and what they were doing.
 Being told that they were monks of Bangor, praying for the success of their countrymen, he said Then they have begun the fight against us: attack them first" Bruce, with his fifty thousand
 Scotsmen, kneeling in prayer together
 before they began the battle, are more than match for the hundred thousand English at the battle of Bannockborn. A praying young Methodist already has in his hands the pledge of success, and on it's forehead the flush of victory. God is with us in personal and leagued work, and He has His own resources of power. What if our individual strength seem insignificant, and our personal efforts feeble? A drop of wa ter bursts rock a spark ignites the powder train; violet scents the val ley a ripple on the surface of the sea mirrors the sky; bird, dipping in his rapid flight, strikes with his wings tip the snowflake on the topmost point of the mountain, and starts the mighty avalanche down the mountains side. "One shall chase thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight" "A little boI a fhp11conI and q small one @ great nation" Success is tof the Lord, and we can safely leave the results to him. I.,
 3-Methodism has @ creed and the ology peculiarly adapted to success in personal work. Methodism believes in personal piety and in personal Saw jour- The preaching of the Methodist fathers crystallized around four facts: GN Man is a sinner; (2) He may be saVsed; (3) he may be saved now; 4), he nfssy know that he is saved. This was new doctrine to English ears How strange 1t' sounded in deistic and athe- istic Englantdl Was it true? What said the book Tls cannons? Prayer? How read the rubrics? r4esua the Eng lish liturgy. It has it's roots in tne primitive church. Many saintly hands have fashioned it. Cranmere. Ridley, Melancthon helped to give it form. Uncounted multitudes have held 1t sacred. And when in some cathedral I hear it's stately periods, and as ryth- mic cadences, echoing through transept and nave and choir, filling the air with sweetness, steal upon my soul, and I am carried back as on an angels wing to the days of Ambrose and Cyril, and Chryeostorn, and I hear again the saintly voices of the saintly dead of the Christian church, 1t seems to me that I catch strains of heavenly music, as in the day when the temple was filled with waves of antiphonal melody, as the seraphim cried one to another, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth Is full of His glory" But exquisite as it all is, my restless, sinful heart is not satisfied. It listens for one note which it hears not. There is missing chord The harmony is not perfect. Vainly do I strain my ear to catch the one note of music my soul yearns to hear. The English liturgy has to do with multitudes. It is al- ways, Lord, have mercy upon us mis- erable sinners" Good Lord, deliver us.' We have erred.'' Thou that mercy upon, us" My poor heart grows faint with longing. Is there no. rest for me; no peace? But listen; hark, my