The Tupelo journal., 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 Graves hui
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
a sense of loneliness in his expe-
rlences hat 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 ONE 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 We have
In di nigh DIlCSl WHICH CdIluOC De
touched with a feeling of your in
frmities; but was in all points
tempted like as We are, yet without
sim"
1t is true that misery likes COM
pany, but not misery to make it's
own misery more miserable, but COM
partnership in suffering and tempta-
ton, which IS r~eassuring and help
full because it is able to point the
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 SINH
lar to those through which Christian
had passed. 1t 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 well as his
victories. And by the way, this is
one of the sur evidences that God
is the author of the Bible, for where
mar 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.
EFT the ,empted soul turn to
- Gods Word if it would dispel
its sense of loneliness in it's 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 its feet
had stumbled bore the marks of other
feet, it would learn that no tempta-
ton had overtaken it which was not
common to man. Yea, it would learn
more. 1t 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
ing the pathway with danger, His
strong, unfailing feet led safely
around and owe 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 Don 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 filing with the
"AitS lidh . 1COO DIS lC 1OlIOW GlG
pathway blazed by the intrepid ex-
plorer. When Jesus Christ journeyed
over the pathway of life which was
filed with the wrecks 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 + able, but would with the
temptation also make a way of es-
cape.
II AVING positively assured the soul
II that it is not alone in the
kind nor degree of temptation which
assails it, Paul goes on to speak OF
the faithful God Who prevents the
soul from being tested beyond its
strength to bear, and Who sets a door
of escape at the side of every tempta-
ton, which even the hand of Satan
cannot close. A faithful God! Faith.
less man! God and His Son Jesus
Christ alone have a right to be called
faithful. The saint falls heir to the
title as he lives the life of victory in
Christ Jesus. A faithful God has
done two things for the sinner: he
has put a restraining hand upon
Satan so that no has been unable
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