There is no mistaking the man or woman who has found the second rest. There is a poise of spirit and a sweet serious balance of soul which can not be counterfeited. The preacher who appreciates spirituality sees no sight more beautiful than the serene, calm faces of auditors from whose souls the tempests have been cast. Life's toils and distractions and disappointments have all been negatived by the power of the all-conquering Christ.
A SCENE AT ALLENTOWN.
These words are being written in the city of Allentown, Pa., where the writer is spending ten days in a series of Pentecostal services. Last evening we saw a symbol of the rest Christ gives. We strolled along the east bank of the Lehigh River about half an hour after sunset. All the western sky was beautiful with an afterglow. The water of the river, silver near the shore and golden toward the west, was as still as the face of a mirror. The trees on the shore leaned over perfect pictures of themselves. The hills, which fell back gracefully from the valley, were covered with cloaks of gold and vermillion and emerald, and not a leaf stirred in the evening air. Far up the river the tiny bell of a canal-mule tinkled drowsily. On the veranda of a little cottage a young mother crooned a lullaby to a slumbering child, and a little bird in a thick grove called, "Peace! Peace!"
CALM.
If God can make so beautiful a scene in the physical world, what can He not make in the spiritual? Thank God! He can excel anything the natural eye ever beheld. He can hang the soul with paintings and turn the "River of Life clear as crystal" through it, and fill the chambers of the heart with lullabies and the song of birds crying, "Peace!" If there are times when we are awed and charmed by
"All the beauty of the world"
let us remember that what we see is only a type of the grandeur and glory and splendor He will put in our spirit-nature if we but permit Him to sanctify us and cast out the storms and tempests.
THE PAIN OF SYMPATHY.
While we may possess and enjoy "the second rest" here and now, we need not forget that another is promised to us. We get weary physically sometimes here. The days frequently seem long and trying. There are hours and hours of labor, and nights and nights of toil, but, thank God! we can say at each sunset, "I am one day nearer rest." For while a sanctified man is always at rest spiritually, he can not rest physically to much satisfaction. In his dreams he can see the white, drawn faces of the doomed, and hear the wild uncouth shriek of the tormented. He remembers with horror that one hundred thousand souls are rolled off into Eternity while the earth makes one revolution! He thinks of cheerless homes, and torn and bleeding hearts, and wives waiting for the sound of unsteady steps, and children friendless and hungry, and figures leaping from bridges, and shaking hands holding poison, and maniacs behind the bars glaring with wild eye-balls through dishevelled hair! And he leaps from the couch with the cry, "O the pity of it all!" And he can not be still, he can not be idle, but is constrained to do his utmost by word and pen to save a sinking, gurgling, drowning humanity.