made a proposition that if Christ would fall down and worship him he would give him all the kingdoms of the world. Matt. 4:8, 9; but Christ said, "It is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' Matt. 4: 10. Man was created not to serve self, but to serve and worship God. When we love and worship self we worship the devil, and receive the reward of iniquity. When we worship and serve God we receive the reward of righteousness-joy and peace and also honor. "If any man serve me him will my Father honor." St. John 12:26.

The serving of self brings dishonor. It is something that is despised both in the eyes of God and man. It is an unholy principle that steals its way into the human mind and soul, like the worms in the trees that causes the leaves to wither and fade and timber to decay and become worthless. What is the supreme need in every human soul? It is to have self crucified and put out of the way, and to be filled with a spirit of an opposite nature, and that spirit is the spirit of Christ, without which we are none of him. Rom. 8:9. The spirit of Christ was purely a spirit of unselfishness, a spirit that did not seek his own will but the will of him that sent him. When he was ascending the hill of Calvary to be crucified he said, Not my will but thy will be done. Matt. 26:39.

Christ filled the highest mission that any man ever filled in this world, and accomplished the greatest things that were ever accomplished in consequence of the fact that he was destitute of any selfish principle. There are great possibilities lying before every man

that will get self out of the way and be actuated by a principle of love for God and man. It is believed that when the apostle Paul used the language as found in Rom. 7:24, that he had reference to an ancient custom of chaining the living to the dead until they would be delivered from the awful stench by death coming to their relief. “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death." Many in this world are chained to the dead body of selfishness. They have learned from a sad experience that it has an awful stench, and are crying, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death. There is one who can and will deliver. There is one who can stand in the place where self has stood. Who is it? It is the Lord Jesus Christ. What is it that you and I need? We need the Christ life, and in order to realize the Christ life we need the self-life dethroned. Self, the strong man, needs to surrender the palace, to Christ the stronger man, who is able to keep it against all principalities and powers. Self is death, and a very great death, and Christ has come to deliver from so great a death. 2 Cor. 1: 10.

To be wholly delivered from self will doubtless constitute part of the joy that awaits the blood-washed on the other shore. When sin got into the world it placed self upon the throne; it was the work of the devil. When Christ came he came to destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8. The works of the devil were to establish self in the human soul, and the work of Christ was to dethrone the works of the devil and establish God in the human soul. Christ came to take away all that hinders man's progress and

happiness, and place within him that which will make him happy and useful in time and eternity. Christ calls upon us to make a sacrifice, to give up that which is wrong. He does not require us to give up anything except that which is a hindrance to us. Oh, how we love self and our selfish desires, and how hard for us to surrender! The old reptile that we have fondled with so long and so often has placed its deadly fangs into the very vitals of the soul. But when we make the surrender, and receive something so much better than self, we are caused to leap for joy at the happy exchange-the self life for the Christ life. The self life is down hill. The Christ life is up hill. The self life is discontent and sorrow. The Christ life is joy and peace. The self life, except surrendered, means hell. The Christ life means heaven.

The happiest place in this world is where there is the smallest amount of selfishness, and the place where there is the greatest amount of misery and discontent is where selfishness reigns supreme. Away, away with it, thou disturber of the peace of mankind, and the greatest enemy of God. Self has been our chief enemy in this world. Let us all rejoice in the fact that in the place to which I hope we are tending there will be no selfishness there. Lucifer will not return to that place any more to disturb the joy of that celestial clime. In Rev. 21, we are told that there shall be no more death; No more sorrow nor crying. No more tears. The former things have passed away. No more of self, to disturb us while realizing that perfect joy that Christ will give to all those who give

up self for his sake. To those who love him more than they love self or the things of this world,

Happy will be the day

When self will be no more,
Where the tears are wiped away,
On the happy heavenly shore.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE ABUNDANT LIFE.

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. St. John 10: 10.

I Now proceed to discuss two characters possessed with opposite natures. The first one mentioned in the text is a thief, and who is a thief? Any child can answer and say that it is a character that will secretly take that which does not belong to it. But in the sense that our Lord used the term it has special reference to false teachers and those who claim to be of Christ and are not. "All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them." St. John 10:8. Before Christ came in the flesh there were those who came claiming to be Christ. They were thieves and robbers. All along the line of human events, thieves have been in the world, and among all the thieves theological thieves are the worst, and back of all of them is their great-grandfatherthe father of all thieves. His name is Satan, or the devil. He is an old thief. He slipped into the Garden

of Eden and caused our first parents to sin, while he stole from them the image of their creator and caused them to be driven from the beautiful Garden of Eden. The work of the thief has been going on ever since.

At this point I will ask you, my dear reader, have you lost anything? Where is the interest you once had in religious service? In the Bible? In heaven? If you find it missing, the thief has stolen it, for he came to steal, and not only to steal, but to kill and to destroy. When he stole from man the image of God in the Garden of Eden his next step was to kill and destroy the human race, which doubtless he would have done had it not been for the glorious fact that Christ came that the human race might have life. In the mind of the divine being Christ stood as a Lamb slain, that man might have life. The business of the thief was to steal, to kill, and destroy. The business of Christ was that we might have life.

Life is that mysterious principle that we call consciousness, and offspring of God himself, who is the fountain of all life. Life is a principle that is very dear to us, and something we do not wish to part with. The devil never told the truth but once, when he said, "All that a man hath will he give for his life." Job 2:4. That was not true in Job's case, but ordinarily men will give everything for their life. We close our eyes in sleep believing that we will awake again, but what kind of a sacrifice would we make before we would be willing to bid farewell to life, no more to look upon the objects around us? Horrible thought, the annihilation of life!