The log cabin Democrat., 1916-05-24
GODS GREAT GIFT
Offer of Eternal Life Was the Message the Savior Bore
 to a Sinful World.

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 lives only in his gold; yet surely, if it should come to such pass, he | would let his gold go. If we could know all the secret history of the people among whom we dwell, or even in our own narrow circle, we should find some burdened to the last extremity of endurance; and yet what small percentage of these it is that are driven to suicide, and even of these, how many lose their reason first, Is not our own life, and that of those we love, the most precious thing we have. If it is ever in danger we do not think of cost Would we not sell all that we have to buy life?
 One would think, then, that the offer of eternal life would be one with which the world would close with the utmost earnestness, and be only too glad to obtain it at any cost; that such things as persuasion, appeal, en- treaty, argument, need have no place here! Surely the herald of such tidings will be everywhere welcome.
 Is it so? Is not the fact in most melancholy contrast to this pleasing picture? To the young and gay, is not the preachers voice for the most part an unpleasant one? To the man of business, is it not too often an un- meaning voice, heard but not per ceived, as one hears the ticking of the clock while one reads an absorbing tale? Do not men embrace every ex- cuse for not going to hear it that their conscience will tolerate? This is strange if you think about it.
 Eternal Life Is for All.
 Lay hold on eternal life" Eternal life must be to be had, then. I won- der how many of us have ever seri- ously thought of it! "Of course it is.' An, that "of course," There's a mine of diamonds to be had if you will sell what you have and buy the next field!" The world does not neekly say. "Of course,' and plod on it's accustomed way, in such a case. No! It opens eyes, and ears, and brain, and heart, and says, in an eager tone, What. Do you mean it? Is it true?" and on receiving the necessary proof instantly begins to cast about for the means of so enriching itself. But when one says, in the midst of dying, sorrowing men, Eternal life is to be had" all the reply their spirit gives us is "Of course" Think of it now. 'I may live forever and ever may conquer death, may pass through it as victor; bow down at it's thrust, only to rise up again and laugh at it's impotence; may bare my breast to it's dart, only to bound up to life again, and shout joyously, o death, where is thy sting? o grave, where is thy victory?'"
 l may not only possess life a second time, but such life as shall make this seventy 7-ears of song and sur- shine, sighs and shade, mere epi. sode, which by comparison with the surroundings of the new life shall be but as darkness. I may spurn this hindering, cramping, lettering body of sin and death away from me, and in some finer, more ethereal shape rise beyond, upward, to a realm of purer, stronger life, to find all things re. vealed in new and frightened splen- dor; to find life. and love, and work, and worship grander and diviner things; to look back upon pain as we now look back on some troublous dream of the night that is passed away; upon all life's tears, as we think in our manhood of the sorrows of our childhood and youth; upon all the struggles and strifes and woes of these fleeting years as we look, from the ripe competency of our manhood, upon the apprenticeship through which we passed to what we are now If this life of seventy years be the process by which we develop into and up to the divine, then 1t is undeniably beautiful; otherwise, human life is the darkest of problems.
 Divine Message.
 This, then. is the message of that Savior who came to earth "to bring life and immortality to light"--to teach men how they might begin now to live the life everlasting, and who set up his kingdom in the hearts of men.
 But you are not to wait for the pos session of eternal life to happen to you: you are to begin to possess; the action must be yours, your thought, your choice, your resolve!
 An, my brother, he who would lay hold on eternal life must have empty hands; must empty them himself; ay, for the time being. of anything he may hold. You must be willing to give up every kind of pleasure that you shall ind incompatible with eternal life; eternal life must be the chief thing with you if you are to possess it; and you must prove 1t by putting that cup away-earnestly away.
 When we thus meet the conditions and thus accept the efficacy of Christs blood, we may claim the glad prom ise that he hath promised us, even eternal life."-Rev. H. P. Lyman