Newport weekly independent., 1903-04-17

alone was left Elijah was very human in this feel ing and experience. He felt utterly undone when he thought he stood alone. The human heart craves hu- man sympathy and companionship, and when God assured him that there were seven thousand in Israel who stood with him in their loyalty to God he was comforted. Sometimes tempted and buffeted man feels such sense of loneliness in his expe- riences that he imagines that he dWells apart in a world of misery all his own and that there are none who stand with him or can understand the peculiar nature of his trouble But God comes when the soul is sick and discouraged and longing for death and whispers comfortingly:
 Thou are not alone in thy expe- rience, oh, soul, for there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." And then point ing to His victorious and glorified Son He goes on to say, "for ye have not an high priest which cannot be touched with feeling of your in- firmities;' but was in all points tempted like as ye are, yet without sim
 It is true that misery likes com pany, but not misery to make it's own misery more miserable, but com panionship in suffering and tempta- tion, which IS reassuring and help ic <D way out. The wife and children of Bunyan's Christian found not a little encouragement and comfort in the thought that the trials and difficult ties which beset them on their jour- ney to the celestial city were simi- lar to those through which Christian had passed. It is comforting to know that other saints have travelled over the same pathway which our feet are treading, have stumbled over the same hard, rocky ground, have met with the same pitfalls and snares by the roadside, have been drawn off into the same bypaths of alluring sins. We are glad that in the history of the human race which God has written for our contemplation He has included mans failures as we'll as his victories. And by the way, this is one of the sure evidences that God is the author of the Bible, for where man covers up and excuses God boldly tells~the truth and points the moral. The hundred years which Noah faithfully spent in building the ark for the Lord were not sufficient to make God forget that once Noah got drunk. All the faithfulness and loyalty of David, "the man after Gods own heart" could not stay the finger of God as he recorded the temptation, the sin, the evil conse- quences and the repentance of King David.
 I EFT the ;empted soul turn to A Gods Word if it would dspel its sense of loneliness in its trying experience. Instead of walking in solitude it would hear the tread of other feet, it would feel the presence of other tried souls, it would see that the temptation against which it's feet had stumbled bore the marks of other feet, it would learn that no tempta- tion had overtaken it which was not common to man. Yea, it would learn more. It would find that the print of the SaviOur's feet had pressed every inch of the way of the eXpe- riences of life, and that where the stumbling rocks, the pitfalls and the enticing bypaths of sin occurred, fill +1>o Strong, unfailing feet led safely around and over the perilous places.
 When Columbus had pushed the prov of his boat across the unknown sea until the green shores of the new continent opened to his vision others were quick and bold to attempt the voyage, and soon the sea was filled with the westward moving ships. When Stanley penetrated the heart of Africa and at last emerged on the other side of the continent others were ready to follow, and the dark continent is fast filling with the white mans feet as he follows the pathway blazed by the intrepid ex- plorer. When Jesus Christ journeyed over the pathway of life which was filled with the wreclks and failures of human life. He blazed a new way which avoided every pitfall of sin, every bypath, every stumbling block set by Satan, so that Paul could write for you and for me of Gods faithful ness, and declare that God would not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but would with the temptation also make a way of es- cape.
 IT positively assuredthe soul that it is not alone in the kind nor degree of temptation which